


Undertow and Overflow

by Morninglight (orphan_account)



Series: Waves on the Shores of Time [3]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Alternate Universe - Assassins & Hitmen, Alternate Universe - Military, Alternate Universe - Politics, Alternate Universe - Priests, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Bad Future, Canon-Typical Violence, Character of Faith, Crisis of Faith, Cunnilingus, Headcanon, Implied/Referenced Torture, Medical Experimentation, Misogyny, Multi, Murder, Organized Crime, Slut Shaming, Torture, Vaginal Sex, Villains to Heroes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-15
Updated: 2016-08-27
Packaged: 2018-07-24 03:46:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 22,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7492275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Morninglight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the death of a priestess in 2287, the Commonwealth is ground under the bloody heel of a vengeful Arthur Maxson. Desperate in the face of annihilation, the Institute sends a Courser to the 2070s to assassinate Roger Maxson, thereby ensuring no Brotherhood of Steel.</p><p>Caught in the temporal undertow, Arthur Maxson is thrown back to 2073, four years before the Great War. Seeing a chance to save both his ancestor and the woman he loves, he tries to alter the course of history, unaware of the overflow effect on the future.</p><p>Sparrow Killian has just graduated law school. A chance meeting with a blue-eyed stranger who knows her crime clan name sends her in a direction no one expected about two centuries too soon.</p><p>In 2287, Paladin Danse leads a Brotherhood team into the Commonwealth on the hope offered by a stray fact on a half-destroyed holotape. With enemies before and behind him, the future he knows is altered by a man in the past.</p><p>Time runs both ways. But war, war never changes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Desperate Measures

**Author's Note:**

> Note: Thanks for reading and reviewing. Trigger warnings for death, violence, fantastic racism, misogyny, slut-shaming and a few others that will be added in the tags. This idea was all mine but Fancy Lads Snack Cakes urged me to write it. Any resemblance to the plotline of the Terminator is purely coincidental and owing to pop culture.

_Commonwealth Institute of Technology Ruins, 2290_

“Of all the crackbrained schemes you’ve come up with, Dr Li, this has to take the cake!”

            “It’s theoretically possible.” Madison Li’s voice was quiet yet firm despite the sounds of battle outside Advanced Systems. “I can jury-rig the Molecular Relay to throw a Courser back to the 2070s.”

            “You’ll wipe out this entire timeline,” Alanna Secord countered.

            Madison looked grimly at the tattered banner of the Brotherhood of Steel flying outside as innocent civilian, synth and human alike, were slaughtered by merciless soldiers in power armour. “You say this like it’s a bad thing. No Roger Maxson, no Brotherhood of Steel, no _Arthur Maxson_.”

            The only soldier in the room cranked up his laser musket. “Do it. I’ll buy you time.”

            Before the scientists could argue, Preston Garvey exited the molecular relay chamber. The Minuteman knew they were all dead when Maxson reached them. They were doomed from the day an Institute Director got the bright idea of replacing the Elder with a synth to save themselves.

            By the time the fallout settled, a dead Old Rite priestess and an executed synth Paladin saw Arthur Maxson turn from would-be saviour to brutal tyrant. The Institute became an unlikely ally. And it still _wasn’t enough._

            Preston got outside just in time. Maxson himself was striding up the ramp, covered in blood with pure murder on his scarred, bearded features. Behind him, fire and ash shrouded the once-green trees of the Institute’s courtyard. The future that could have been built if they’d united earlier.

            “Garvey,” rasped the Elder of the Brotherhood. “Were you taken in by promises of a better future or have you always been a synth traitor like Danse?”

            “Danse might have been a synth but he was never a traitor,” the General told Maxson. “Proud of yourself, Maxson? You’ve destroyed the Commonwealth for the sake of vengeance.”

            Something flickered in those ice-blue eyes and Preston kept on talking, buying Madison and Alanna more time. “Gealbhan would have hated this. She saw one world die in fire and now you’re repeating the act in her name.”

            “The Institute set in motion the events that killed her, Garvey.” Maxson cracked his knuckles. “Without her, the world is dust and ashes.”

            “And so you’ll burn it down instead of putting a bullet in your head to make the rest of us suffer.” Preston raised his laser musket and aimed.

            Maxson clotheslined him before he could fire, driving him into the ground with rib-breaking force. Preston knew once he hit metal he was dead but if he could buy the scientists some more time-

            “You could have honoured her by living the words of the Good Book,” he wheezed, coughing up blood. “’Love thy neighbour’. ‘Do unto others’. ‘Judge not lest ye be judged’. But you didn’t. So far as I’m concerned, you’re not fit to speak Gealbhan’s name.”

            Arthur’s expression twisted with anguished rage. “I loved her!”

            “And you piss on her memory every breath you take.” It was a relief to say these things after years of silence and solitude. It almost felt like confession, except that Preston was giving Arthur Maxson the truth he needed to hear. Even though they’d both die if Madison succeeded.

            A deep hum thrummed through the entire complex. “What is going on?” Maxson demanded. “Tell me, Garvey.”

            “They’re trying to save us all,” Preston said with a bloody smile. “No Roger Maxson, no Brotherhood of Steel, no Arthur Maxson. If it’s any consolation, though, Gealbhan might live in a new timeline.”

            Those ice-blue eyes widened and Maxson bolted for the locked door. He wouldn’t get through in time. Preston had made sure of that.

            He closed his eyes and waited for the end to come.

…

The entire chamber was glowing blue-white by the time Arthur smashed the lock with Final Judgment, destroying the weapon. A gun was nothing compared to the arrogance of the Institute trying to alter time itself in a futile attempt at victory.

            Preston’s words cut through the armour of grief-scar and righteous fury that kept Arthur safe and sane. The Minuteman had been right. Gealbhan would have hated this. But the Institute had taken his doe-eyed priestess and his best friend from him. In their names, he would burn the scientists and salt their ashes.

            Madison Li, greying hair a dark corona around her pale face, was giving a Courser who stood in the heart of the chamber instructions. “Roger Maxson needs to die. He’s stationed at Mariposa in 2077. Do this and you’ll save the Institute.”

            “Understood, ma’am,” the lean, dark-haired Courser replied. “Any other instructions?”

            “None. Doing anything more than that might fuck up the entire timestream. If things weren’t so-“

            Her words were cut off by Arthur’s knife thrown into her throat. The Brotherhood had trusted that traitor and she turned to the Institute.

            The other scientist kept on pressing buttons as the energy in the room began to make the hair of those within rise. Arthur knew he would die when he interfered but… the world would survive. The Brotherhood would survive. And maybe he would see Gealbhan once more and beg her forgiveness.

            He tackled the Courser just as the hum reached its crescendo, the world shattering into waves of blue-white force. Arthur felt his body break down and with the last of his conscious thoughts, he drew the image of Gealbhan – doe-brown eyes, chestnut-brown hair – in his mind and let himself sink into the wet darkness.

…

If there was anything Frances Killian could do, it was throw a proper Boston Irish shindig for his daughter who’d just graduated law school at the unprecedented age of twenty-two. Even Elisabeth, his Boston Brahmin bride with ties to the government, had set aside her icy reserve to celebrate. Anyone who was anyone had come to the party and the Boston matrons were already discussing potential matches for the attractive, intelligent Sparrow from their male relatives.

            Sparrow had slipped away for a few moments of solitude. She loved her family, she really did, but having her parents around dampened her own urge to celebrate. Her mother was already making pointed comments about settling down with a good boy from a military family. The young woman didn’t have the heart to tell her that she knew half the soldier boys in the Biblical sense and wouldn’t go back for seconds, let alone sign up for a lifetime of disappointing sex.

            The harbour was very pretty though. Frances had prevailed on his old connections to hire out Fraternal Post 115 for the party, which would incidentally introduce his ‘boys’ to the people they needed to impress to rise in the army. Or possibly execute if they were a liability to the war effort. The Boston Irish mobster-turned-supply master and black ops soldier was nothing if not adept at multitasking.

            It had been easy to ignore what her parents did in high school and college, throwing herself into study with a zeal that saw her graduate early and at the top of her class, partying just as hard during her few breaks. Now she was a lawyer (in name) and forced to confront the truth about her family’s sordid secrets. They would expect her to follow in their footsteps or open up an entirely new path.

            A flash of blue-white light seared her gaze for a moment before Sparrow heard an almighty splash in the harbour. _What the hell was that?_

            Frances had made sure she could swim. So she dove in, never mind her expensive silk blouse and linen business suit, and caught the heavy weight before it could sink to the bottom of the harbour and be lost forever. She felt leather – plated – under her hand as she grabbed at the body’s jacket. It felt male and he was heavier than she’d anticipated, driving them deeper into the water.

            Just her luck to drown before confession tomorrow-

            He got his shit together and grabbed her instead, swimming for the surface. The man was ridiculously strong, pulling her and that coat easily, and within moments they were both taking in great sweet gulps of air. Then he swam for shore with her tucked under one arm.

            “If I’d known you could bloody swim, I wouldn’t have ruined my suit,” she gasped. “What in the name of the Lord and His Saints was that?”

            “Institute teleporter technology,” he rasped. “What the hell where you doing in the water? It’s irradiated!”

            “No, it isn’t. C.I.T is very careful to keep the harbour clean, I’m told.” She wrung out her hair. “The Boston Brahmins would have their hide otherwise, world-class science facility or not.”

            The stranger had settled on his knees, watching her intently. Sparrow had to admit that he was very attractive with that barrel chest and thick thighs. In the weak glow of a distant lamplight, his uniform was black beneath that coat, and his harsh-boned face marred by several scars.

            Then his words caught up with her. “C.I.T’s experimenting with teleporters?”

            He was staring at her in wonder. “Gealbhan?”

            Sparrow felt a chill go down her spine. “How did you know my clan name?”

            “Gealbhan. I’m sorry.” She found herself in a bone-crushing embrace with a man who looked muscular enough to break her in two weeping into her hair. “I’m sorry. Please forgive me.”

            “Who are you?” she demanded. “Let me go!”

            When he failed to oblige, she had to bite the nearest bit of flesh she could reach, which happened to be his neck. Hard.

            He grunted and loosened his hold, which allowed her to wriggle loose using the tricks her father had made her learn. Hand pressed to his neck, he regarded her with a wounded expression.

            “Who are you and how do you know my clan name?” Sparrow repeated, wishing she had a gun.

            “’Clan name’?” he asked confusedly.

            “Yes. There’s very few people who know that name and all of them are family.”

            “Sparrow, where are ye?” That would be her father right on cue. “Yer mother’s looking for ye!”

            “I thought I’d go for a swim!” she retorted.

            “Very funny.” Frances looked over the retaining wall. “Who the hell’s he?”

            “Arthur,” the stranger responded. “My mother was an O’Leary. Father’s a Maxson.”

            Her father’s eyebrow shot up. The O’Leary were from New York City and thought wiped out in the clan wars there about twenty years ago. The Maxsons were an old military family from California. “Why are ye and my daughter wet?”

            “He fell into the water and I dived into to save him,” Sparrow said sourly. “If I’d known he could swim like he did, I’d’ve spared my suit.”

            Frances waved his hand. “Yer mother’s talking about getting ye a new wardrobe to suit yer adult life. Don’t worry about it.”

            He leaned over and offered a hand. “Lift the colleen up, will ye? We can climb a wall like this but not her.”

            Arthur picked Sparrow up by the waist before she could tell her father this man was full of shit and lifted her to Frances, who settled her on the ground. Then he climbed up himself, agile as a gymnast despite his heavy build and heavier coat, and clasped hands with the clansman. “Your daughter dived in to save a life. If she hadn’t grabbed me, I might have drowned.”

            Frances regarded him with keen brown eyes. “How’d ye wind up in there?”

            The man nodded in the direction of C.I.T. “Experiment of theirs. Can’t say much more than that.”

            Her father grimaced. “Bad place, that one. The wife swears they’ll win the war though.”

            “I don’t think anyone will win the war. Both sides will escalate the arms race, creating technology that outpaces humanity’s moral evolution, until it all goes to hell,” Arthur said grimly.

            “Ye’re not far wrong I think, Maxson.” They shared a look of grim agreement. “I won’t ask questions. When ye’re married to Elisabeth Killian – well, I know what to ask and when to ask.”

            Sparrow opened her mouth to demand answers from Arthur on how he knew her clan name but was quelled by her father’s stern look. “Colleen, ye go back to the party before yer mother rounds up half the bloody D.I.A to look for ye.”

            “Dad, Maxson’s full of shit,” she said clearly in Irish Gaelic. “He appeared in a flash of blue-white light. And he knows my clan name.”

            “C.I.T does strange things, colleen. I know yer mother’s looking into that… what’s it called? Telly-portals?”

            “Teleportation,” she corrected.

            “Aye, that’s it.” Frances’ eyes were grim. “Maxson’s the look of a black ops soldier, the kind that makes my boys look like rent-a-cops. Yer mother’s wanting ye involved in the family business but I know ye’re not so keen. Go tell yer mother ye fell into the water because of the crumbly wall everyone’s been bitching about, then go home.”

            “Go, Gealbhan,” Arthur said softly. “This is… something you should be kept from.”

            Sparrow knew better than to argue the point. There were things she didn’t want to think about yet, so she took the graceful exit provided and left.

            But she wasn’t happy at being treated like a child.

…

Arthur watched Gealbhan leave like a sinner seeing his salvation receding out of reach. Garvey’s words burned more than they should, pricking a conscience he’d thought buried beneath the blood and ashes of the Commonwealth. Now he was left alone with a man who might just be as dangerous as the hard gaze and large hands promised.

            The physical resemblance between Gealbhan and her father was apparent in the long-limbed build and rosy skin. Killian was stockier with grey streaking his reddish-brown hair and thick eyebrows that would have put Danse’s to shame. “Ye harm her, boy, and I will see ye doing worse experiments than a telly-portal test,” the man promised harshly.

            Arthur looked the Irishman squarely in the eyes. “Your daughter’s about the only thing in this world I won’t harm, Killian. I can’t say the same about you and her mother though, with what I know about your activities in Canada and Alaska.”

            He’d obviously been flung back in time to the early 2070s. Gealbhan was much younger than the worn, weary-eyed woman he knew, lacking the scars and patch of vitiligo that he recalled like the back of his hand. Younger and without the peaceful serenity that defined the Old Rite priestess; she was taut as stretched steel wire, eyes wary and fearful.

            Frances regarded him thoughtfully. “I don’t consider ye an enemy _yet_ , Maxson. Ye haven’t lied to me for all the colleen thinks ye have.”

            Of all the potential allies… “How open-minded are you, Killian?”

            “When it comes to protecting my family, pretty fucking open to anything. If ye know what I do, ye’ll know why.”

            Arthur clasped his hands behind his back. “What if I told you that my statement on the arms race wasn’t hyperbole? That it was my past – and your future.”

            “The nuclear war’s inevitable,” Killian sighed. “I’ve been building contacts and doing dirty work for the likes of the government to make sure my clan’s in the Vaults when it hits. Too little to share amongst too many.”

            His resignation nearly floored Arthur. “You’re actively helping the arms race!”

            “And there’s Triad Chinamen across the sea doing the same,” Killian said calmly. “I’m not a good man and neither are ye, Maxson. I see it in yer eyes. If God’s kind, Gilly and her sort will be safe in the Vaults when the bombs fall while the likes of ye and me die.”

            “My ancestors survived the Great War,” Arthur said harshly. “We hunted down those who misused technology and gave us nuclear Armageddon for two hundred and thirteen years.”

            Killian’s eyes narrowed. “How do ye know my daughter then?”

            “Vault 111, cryo facility. She entered there with her husband Nathan Finlay-“

            _That_ got a reaction from Killian. “If ye think I’d let the likes of him near the colleen-“

            “I believe they married around 2075. What year is this?”

            “2073. Sparrow just graduated law school.”

            Four years before the Great War. He’d overshot the Courser’s mark, it seemed. Four years to save Roger Maxson and the Brotherhood of Steel. “She’ll be in a car accident sometime this year. It will leave her without a quarter of her face and in need of synthetic replacements. Your wife will use her connections with C.I.T to get them and her DNA will be on file as one of the few who can accept synthetic parts. This will have grave ramifications one hundred and forty years into the future when the Institute breaks into Vault 111 to kidnap her son Shaun.”

            Killian’s jaw dropped. “Ye’re either the best liar I’ve ever met or… ye really are from the future. Prove it. Tell me something that ye couldn’t pick up from my military records.”

            “There are things you have taught Gealbhan that Elisabeth Killian doesn’t know. Caching supplies. Booby traps, mines and grenades. The Killian whiskey and bourbon recipes. The clan symbols and lineages back to An Gorta Mor, the Great Famine. You have an account of laundered money set up for her to inherit when you die so she needn’t be reliant on her mother. You have a Mr Handy named Codsworth waiting for her as a wedding present.”

            Killian swallowed. “There’s only two ways of knowing all that and of them, I won’t talk and neither would the other.”

            Arthur refrained from answering that he’d gotten all of it from the memory banks of a dead Nick Valentine. If he understood correctly, the detective was still alive and in the flesh today instead of being a synthetic recreation. “Have I convinced you that I am sincere?”

            “Ye’ve convinced me ye’re a crazy bastard who knows too much,” Killian responded. “But a crazy bastard’s what I might just need.”

            The former Elder reflected that Killian and Proctor Teagan would have understood each other very well. “What do you want from me?”

            “What I’ve always wanted. My clan to survive what’s coming.” Killian’s voice was steady. “I’ll bet ye’re familiar with the kind of work-“

            “I will not commit acts of murder and sabotage to advance the cause of a dying nation,” Arthur hissed.

            Killian raised an eyebrow. “I’m not talking about army work, boy. I’m talking about crime clan stuff. If yer mother _was_ an O’Leary-“

            “She was. But by 2257, the O’Leary clan was a lineage of great respect and honour,” Arthur interrupted again. “I was born and bred for war, to lead men to war and to achieve victory in war. It was the fact I was winning one against the Institute that led them to send an assassin back in time to murder my ultimate ancestor.”

            The Irishman folded his arms. “So why are ye here and not with yer ancestor?”

            “Because I thought my final attack had thwarted the Institute’s purpose and…” He sighed and looked in the direction Gealbhan had gone. “Your daughter was preserved in the Vault until she and Finlay escaped. I loved the woman she became until she died.”

            Killian’s eyes glinted. “How did she die?”

            “Finlay, who became a mercenary in service to the Institute because your grandson was taken by them and was raised to be their leader, shot her in the head just after we kissed. I think he was aiming for me.” Arthur lowered his gaze as grief and rage surged through him. “I am not proud of what I became to destroy the Institute after that.”

            _“You’re not fit to speak Gealbhan’s name.”_ Garvey’s words echoed through the vaults of memory. The Minuteman had died believing that.

            “Men such as ye and me rarely open our hearts because it’s wiser that way,” Killian said softly. “But we still take spouses and have children. And woe betide the bastard who harms them because there’s nothing we won’t do to protect or avenge them.”

            Of all the people to understand Arthur Maxson, it had to be the criminal who committed atrocities for his country. And the former Elder realised that Killian was sick of what he’d done but saw no way out because he had to protect his family.

            _I have the power to change the future,_ he thought with sudden clarity. He could save Roger Maxson, cut down the Institute in its infancy-

            He wrestled his thoughts into submission. “We understand each other.”

            “So we do. I have a lot of contacts and ye, from the sounds of it, know a damned good deal about the future.” Killian’s expression was thoughtful. “I wasn’t going to ask ye to assassinate or sabotage – I got plenty of boys for that. I was going to suggest-“

            The Irishman kept on talking about things like seed banks, caches of medicine and weapons, data storage, and Arthur listened thoughtfully. He didn’t know if Killian was grasping at a chance to save his daughter and family or genuinely believed him, but the former Elder wouldn’t look a gift Brahmin in the mouth. He couldn’t stop the war but he could save the Brotherhood and stop the Institute.

            Even if he wasn’t worthy to speak Gealbhan’s name, he could make a future where she survived.


	2. Crossroads

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: Thanks for reading and reviewing. Headcanon for future!Catholicism.

 

_The Citadel, Capital Wasteland, 2287_

The steel coffin was sealed and the world was that little bit lesser for it.

            Paladin Danse and his team waited for the others to file out of the Citadel’s refectory before picking up the last earthly remains of Elder Sarah Lyons. She had sponsored half of them, trained and promoted all of them, and to them fell the responsibility of laying her to rest. No concrete tombstone for the Lioness like her revered sire; fire would ease her passage back to the Steel for she had lived her life in battle.

            Each of Lyon’s Pride was an outsider in the Brotherhood of Steel. Paladin Danse, the literal man of steel, a soldier with the body of a hero and the glowing yellow eyes of a Commonwealth synth. Knight Rhys, five generations’ Brotherhood, sent east because of the civil war that wiped out the Maxsons. Scribe Haylen, a Wastelander taken in as an orphan during the Enclave War. Lancer Cutler, another Wastelander who was actually recruited as an adult. The best of Lyon’s Pride. The last of Lyon’s Pride.

            They carried the coffin to the furnaces where every bit of Brotherhood Steel was smelted and dropped it into the molten metal. Sarah Lyons returned to the Steel as she had lived, mingling her alloy with that of the rank and file. Lyon’s Pride stood around the furnace and pretended the streaks down their sooty cheeks came from the heat of the ironworks. She wouldn’t have wanted them to weep after all.

            Later as the arguing in the Great Hall over who should become the next Elder raged, Haylen called them to the archives. “I think you understand just how dire the situation is both for us and the Brotherhood,” she said without preamble. “Anyone who replaces Sarah will widen the cracks in the Steel. They will drive us out of the Citadel, if not actually kill us. The East Coast Brotherhood will fracture as the West has done.”

            Danse’s eerie yellow eyes regarded her grimly. “I’m not afraid to die,” he told her. “Get on a vertibird and I will cover your escape.”

            “Don’t be more of a metal moron than you are already,” Cutler told his beloved bluntly. “You go with us or we don’t leave at all.”

            Rhys nodded in curt agreement. “Sorry, metal man. You’re stuck with us.”

            Danse’s full mouth curved sadly. “You’re all blind loyal fools and we’ll die for it.”

            “At least we will strengthen the Steel with our deaths,” Rhys retorted before looking at his wife. “Haylen, you wouldn’t have called us here just to tell us of our impending demise.”

            “I’ve been digging in the archives since Head Scribe Rothchild put me on grunt duty in here,” the Scribe confirmed. “I found some… interesting information.”

            She pulled out a sad-looking holotape. “This was shoved in the box containing information about the pre-War history of the families which would go on to found the Brotherhood of Steel. I managed to splice enough of the tape together to make it playable…”

            Haylen inserted the holotape into her Pipboy and pressed play. The sound of crackling filled the air before fragmentary dialogue could be heard. “-Maxson wants the caches here,” spoke an Irish clansman. “-I don’t fucking care, Finlay. Arthur’s the best hope for-“

            The holotape ended and Haylen sighed. “We know about Roger and his son, also named Roger, from the Lost Hills records. There’s a few references in the old pre-War records about a Nigel Maxson who died without issue. But this is the only _direct_ reference to an Arthur Maxson who was allied to the old Irish clans.”

            She opened an ancient yellowed file with ‘Finlay, Nathan Connor’ typed on its edge. “The only Finlay of note in the crime clans was an enforcer and soldier named Nate. He was black ops, the kind of soldier used to execute enemies of the old United States government, and under the mentorship of another clansman named Frances Killian – on whom we have a fair amount of information.”

            Danse raised a thick eyebrow. “Haylen, you seriously don’t believe that crap about a lost Maxson lineage.”

            “There’s actually some good circumstantial evidence that a Maxson lived in the Commonwealth around the time of the Great War, if his name truly was Arthur,” the Scribe answered crisply. “Frances Killian, for all his faults and choices of alliance, is the reason that the Irish clanholds exist. He knew the Great War was coming and worked to set up seed banks, caches of supplies and even means of communication that could survive the nuclear apocalypse. One of his greatest allies – who was repeatedly referred to in his letters and holotapes to various crime clan leaders – was a soldier named Arthur.”

            Cutler’s dark eyes narrowed. “We found the Citadel on less evidence,” he pointed out to a sceptical Danse.

            “So there was another Maxson, but-“ Danse was cut off by Haylen’s impatient chop of the hand.

            “This Arthur was a member of the clans through marriage,” Haylen said. “If it’s the same Arthur Maxson, he was Frances Killian’s own son-in-law. That’s why he was trusted so much by the clans.”

            She pulled out a second file, this one the blue of Vault-Tec. “Vault 111 records list a Gealbhan Killian amongst its inhabitants and particular mention is made of the fact she is pregnant. Vault 111 is a cryo facility located in the north of the Commonwealth.”

            Rhys leaned across the table. “You’re implying that there might be a Maxson heir on ice.”

            “Or, if the cryo experiment was suspended after a certain time, a Maxson descendant in the Commonwealth,” Haylen confirmed with a slight smile. “There could be a whole Maxson clan.”

            “Let’s not get our hopes up,” Cutler cautioned. “You’ve made your case, Haylen. We’re dead if we stay anyway. We might as well traverse across hostile clanholds, the Glowing Sea and other nasties to the Commonwealth to find us a Maxson.”

            Rhys nodded in agreement. Of course he would. He would follow his wife to the grave.

            Danse had no choice but to agree himself. He couldn’t be parted from his husband after all.

            “We leave now. Get what you can’t live without and meet us at the vertibird docks.” The Paladin squared his shoulders. “Creator help us, we’re going to the Commonwealth.”

…

St Brigid’s in Concord was a traditionally Irish Catholic church that Sparrow’s family had attended since her childhood. The priest on duty in the evening was a wryly humorous woman named Mother Maureen O’Malley, who often cracked the joke that she was the most Irish cleric in Massachusetts. She was also the one Sparrow sought for genuine spiritual counsel, not the withered old fart who took daytime confessions she informed of her sex life to make up for the constant sermons about fornication he delivered. Her relationship with the Church was complicated.

            After listening to Sparrow talk for about half an hour over a cup of ginger tea, the priest sighed and looked over at the stained-glass window of St Brigid of Kildare. “I know you haven’t told me everything, Sparrow Killian, because of what your parents do for this country. Or what they _think_ is for this country.”

            Maureen articulated the doubts that Sparrow had. She loved her parents and knew they loved her. But to know her family’s prosperity was built on a foundation of bones and blood… That was hard to reconcile with her father’s grin as he boasted of his clever daughter to the cousins down at Quincy or her mother’s calm approval when she chose law. “My parents are patriots who happen to profit by serving their country,” she finally said carefully.

            “Few are so blessed,” Maureen observed dryly, bringing a shamed flush to Sparrow’s cheeks. “You’re twenty-one now, graduated top of your class from law school. Good with languages, empathetic to the point of almost being psychic. Intelligent and learned. God has given you many gifts with which to do good.”

            “But this isn’t a good world,” Sparrow pointed out.

            “Because too many are trying to squeeze a dried fruit for the last bit of juice,” Maureen agreed. “The Holy City and Eire of old has been lost through the pride of men. America and China try to press the last drips of oil from Alaska and Canada. Technology won’t adapt fast enough to ease the resource crisis. It is in times like this that revolutions are born.”

            Sparrow cast the priest a wary look. “That is… unwise talk.”

            “Is it?” Maureen’s expression was serene.

            “I know what happens to people who talk like that, Mother O’Malley. I don’t want to see it happen to you.”

            “If I knew you weren’t talking from a place of compassion and concern, I’d throw you out of the church right now, Sparrow Killian.” Maureen’s voice had sharpened a little. “Should I remain silent in the face of sin to preserve my life a little longer?”

            “You’ll help a lot more people alive than dead,” Sparrow pointed out. “We both know Father Kilpatrick’s useless as a priest.”

            How could Sparrow tell her that a bullet in the head was the _best_ Maureen could hope for if she kept on talking like this? The army facilities out west were always looking for new subjects.

            The priest shook her head stubbornly. “I can’t be silent, Sparrow Killian. Go then and be silent. Ignore your conscience and walk your parents’ path.”

            She rose to her feet suddenly and turned away. Sparrow stared at the priest’s back until she vanished into the quarters and then sighed, setting the teacup back in the saucer. She should return home as her father told her.

            That blue-eyed stranger who knew her clan name bothered her. Frances had been worried, trying to keep her out of the trouble associated with the family business on both sides. Elisabeth was actively trying to get her involved in it. Sparrow wanted nothing to do with it all. She just wanted to live her life in peace.

            _He knew me and asked me to forgive him,_ she mused as she walked down the street. Her parents’ home was in Concord just past the Museum of Freedom. _Who or what was he?_

            The lights were on and her mother’s car in the driveway. Sparrow sighed and entered the living room, where Wadsworth was vacuuming the couch.

            “-Look, Liz, the colleen wouldn’t be happy in our line of work.” Her father’s voice drifted in from their bedroom. “Let her handle clan business or open her own law firm. But she’s too decent for military intelligence and too honest for politics.”

            “She’s too sheltered, that’s what she is,” her mother retorted.

            “No, Liz. She knows exactly what we do, if not specific details.” Frances’ voice was heavy. “God’s blessed her – or cursed us – with a conscience. Break that and ye’ll break her.”

            Sparrow sat down on her old wooden rocking chair and listened to the debate rage on. By the time the clock hit midnight, her stomach was soured, any joy from her graduation forgotten.

            Maureen was right. She stood at the crossroads. This house, everything that she had been given, was paid for with the blood and pain of others. That was a truth she’d tried to silence with handsome soldiers and study. But now those distractions were gone and she had to listen to the mutterings of her conscience.

            Yet if she spoke up, she would do no good dead. That wasn’t cowardice speaking. That was common sense.

            _“Gealbhan.”_

            For a moment, she thought she was imagining Arthur speaking to her. Then she realised he was standing at the doorway, looking down at her with those vivid blue eyes. He wore a white t-shirt and faded grey sweat pants that clung to his thick, barrel-chested frame in a manner she shouldn’t be finding attractive. Not while she was in the middle of a moral crisis.

            “Your father was kind enough to give me hospitality for a couple days,” he rasped in Latin.

            Sparrow spread her hands helplessly. “I wondered why Wadsworth was vacuuming the couch.”

            “I’m sorry if my presence bothers you,” Arthur continued softly. “I should have thanked you for saving my life.”

            “You’re welcome.” Sparrow wrapped her arms about herself, feeling naked under the weight of those ice-blue eyes. She really didn’t want to deal with this stranger who knew her clan name at the moment.

            “I’m in your debt. Name it and I will see it done.” Arthur stared at her for a moment longer before nodding and closing the door gently.

            Sparrow continued to hug herself as the argument about her future continued through the night. She didn’t know what happened after she left the party and went to the church. But obviously Maxson had made an impression on her father.

            She thought of Mother O’Malley who would probably be executed or worse soon because she could no longer ignore her conscience. She thought of her father, a good man who murdered for the country and trained others to do the same. She thought of her mother, who was _not_ a good woman but believed that serving her country benefited her. She thought of those handsome soldiers she’d fucked in college who later died in the snows of Alaska and Canada.

            She realised that she could no longer stand the thought of profiting from other people’s misery and suffering, even if only indirectly. Tomorrow, she would try to find work. Surely with her skills, she could find something which would allow her to live independently and ethically.

            Even if the world was hurtling towards annihilation. Right?

…

Arthur only had a little Irish and most of it endearments murmured to him by Gealbhan on the edge of sleep. So much of the conversation between Frances and Elisabeth was a mystery, though the misery on their daughter’s face and the frequent mention of her name painted a grim picture. It was all he could do _not_ to go to her and wrap his arms around her, tell her that she was safe with him.

            Instead he lay down on a blue couch that was softer than any bed he’d known, Elisabeth Killian offering apologies for the lack of what they called a proper mattress. If only she knew whence he’d come. He was given a comfortable pillow and a blanket against the October chill by the Mr Handy, who was as servilely courteous as all his kind were programmed to be. The sheer amount of affluence and technology troubled Arthur yet he could say nothing, as all the caps in his pockets were just trash in this world.

            Exhaustion claimed him and before he knew it, the sun had risen through the netted white curtains and the smell of cooking eggs awoke him. The robot butler was poaching the miniscule eggs in one pot while frying flat strips of preserved belly meat in another pan. Gealbhan, circles so dark they looked like bruises around her soft brown eyes, was awake and going through the paper while Elisabeth sat across her from the table, lips tight.

            She was clearly her mother’s child with the same fine bones, chestnut-brown hair and slender build. But even young, frightened Gealbhan was warmer than the diamond-hard Elisabeth.

            “Good morning,” Arthur greeted both women. “I thank you for the hospitality of last night.”

            Elisabeth inclined her head as his mother Jessica once had. “You’re welcome. It’s not the first time we’ve had one of Frances’ boys sleep on the couch and I doubt it will be the last.”

            “He’s not one of my boys, Liz,” Frances corrected as he emerged from the hallway. “His mother was an O’Leary from California. That makes him a clansman.”

            The matriarch pursed her lips. “Roger Maxson won’t be amused to hear that Nigel fathered a by-blow.”

            “Be the only good thing Nigel ever did,” Frances said dryly as he sat down at the table. They had discussed the fiction last night before coming to the Killians’ modest brick home. “Help yourself to the bacon and eggs, Arthur. They’re real.”

            Arthur didn’t want to think about where the fake eggs and ‘bacon’ came from. “I will, thank you.”

            “And eat something, colleen,” Frances told Gealbhan. He knew they called her Sparrow but he couldn’t think of her by anything other than the name he’d known her as.

            “I’m not particularly hungry, thank you.” She picked up a pen and circled something that looked like a Scribe’s job.

            “She’s decided that she wants to find a job and move out,” Elisabeth said in a brittle tone. “On her own merits.”

            “Be good for her,” Frances said quietly. “No dollar so sweet as the first one ye earn.”

            “I don’t want to follow in the family business,” Gealbhan said softly. “Therefore it behoves me to find a job and pay my own way.”

            “A word from me can see you in a good legal job by the end of the day,” Elisabeth said pointedly.

            “I want to work in the charity sector,” Gealbhan countered.

            “Not a lot of good paying jobs there, colleen,” Frances observed with a worried frown.

            “Most of what earns good money these days is a job I can’t in conscience take,” Gealbhan pointed out with a sigh. “I know what you do is for the good of the USA. I just don’t have the stomach for it myself.”

            _Because you are a good woman,_ Arthur thought as Wadsworth served up the eggs and bacon with some buttered toast.

            Elisabeth frowned. “Many of those so-called charity jobs are hotbeds of Communist activity.”

            “Then I’ll go apply at the Church of the Holy Spirit in Lexington,” was Gealbhan’s response. “Lord knows I have the Latin for it.”

            Arthur ate his breakfast gingerly. The eggs were too cooked and the bacon very salty. He missed a good feed of radroach and mirelurk eggs from the hands of Knight-Sergeant Tuckey. He missed his loyal soldiers. He even missed the Wasteland with its faded hues and scents. Everything here was too bright, too fragrant, _too much_.

            _It’s hard to believe that these are the terrible times Roger Maxson and the founding Elders wrote of,_ he thought as he looked between the three Killians.

            Someone knocked briskly on the door and Frances paused, forkful of eggs halfway to his mouth. “Finlay,” he groused. “Bloody hell, too early for this.”

            Arthur’s hand tightened around the fork. It could only be one Finlay.

            Wadsworth answered the door and sure enough, it was Nate Finlay. A slightly younger version with casually mussed brown-black hair, bright green-hazel eyes and dazzlingly white teeth. He hadn’t been so pretty after Arthur was done with him in the future.

            “Sorry to bother you,” he greeted in his warm friendly voice, smile on his lips. Nate had always smiled as he killed or rorted people. Arthur fantasised about stabbing him with the fork. “Bit of a problem at St Brigid’s.”

            Gealbhan went white as snow. “Mother O’Malley,” she breathed.

            “’Fraid so, gorgeous. Woman didn’t listen to the _very wise_ advice you gave her, was writing a frankly treasonous sermon when I decided to have a word with her.” Nate clicked his tongue in mock sorrow. “Don’t worry, no one knows you were the last one speaking to her. When I was done with the brief chat, I-“

            Nate cut off his sentence as he realised that Arthur was sitting right in front of him. “New squad mate?” he asked of Frances.

            “Outside advisor on clan matters,” the clansman responded. “An O’Leary woman had him courtesy of Nigel Maxson.”

            “A Maxson bastard? Oh Mary, Jesus and Joseph, can I be the one to tell Roger?” Nate’s grin was very wide.

            “No, because it’s a clan matter and you’ll just get us in more hot water with the old western families,” Elisabeth said briskly. “Thank you for handling that awkward business. I’ll see you are properly recompensed.”

            “No worries, ma’am. I owe you and Old Man Killian too much to let some Commie sympathiser try to play your daughter’s tender heart.” Nate touched his forehead. “Catch the taxi straight home next time, Sparrow. A lot of people out there who would hurt you on principle.”

            _You’d know,_ Arthur thought flatly. Letting Gealbhan’s killer walk away was the hardest thing he’d ever done in his life.

            Nate left and Arthur released his tight hold on the fork, realising he’d bent the handle with the force of his grip.

            “She wasn’t a Communist,” Gealbhan said very softly. “She just hated the war.”

            “I’m sure,” Elisabeth said soothingly. “But people like Mother O’Malley are clay in the hands of a Communist.”

            “Nate would have made it look like a suicide,” Frances said disapprovingly. “They’ll bury her outside the church grounds.”

            “She shouldn’t have espoused treasonous sentiments,” Elisabeth countered.

            “Liz…” Frances sighed and shook his head. “He’s getting a bit too independent for my liking though. That’s the third job he’s done without consulting me first.”

            “Another fork, sir?” Wadsworth asked unctuously.

            “No thank you. Sorry,” Arthur rasped as he put the mangled implement on his plate.

            Gealbhan rose to her feet with the lithe grace he remembered. “I’m going to Lexington for that job interview.”

            “No, you’re not,” Elisabeth said sharply. “Not until I investigate its congregation.”

            “You mean see if the priest will pass on my confessions to you.” Gealbhan smiled bitterly at the look of shock on her mother’s face. “No, Mother. I need some solitude and independence. I need to decide what path I’m going to take.”

            “Let her go or we’ll lose her,” Frances murmured.

            Elisabeth’s expression was hard. “You’re acting like a sulky teenage brat, Sparrow.”

            “Maybe.” Gealbhan shrugged. “I just need to be alone at the moment. I’ll catch the bus.”

            “Take Arthur with ye,” Frances said firmly. “He needs to know the lay of the land, colleen.”

            “She asked to be alone, sir,” Arthur reminded him. “Perhaps you could respect that wish?”

            “Fine.” The look Frances gave Arthur was pointed in its command of ‘shadow her’.

            The former Brotherhood soldier inclined his head subtly. He would protect Gealbhan. If Finlay went near her, he’d kill the bastard.

            He looked around at the neat house and realised that the pre-War world was worse than Roger Maxson and the founding Elders had described it. The bombs would be a blessing for the world in disguise.


	3. Assumptions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: Thanks for reading and reviewing. Moar head-canon future!Catholicism.

 

_Southern Commonwealth, 2287_

Cutler had to land the vertibird after three hours because of a radstorm that shot its instruments to hell. Then Lyon’s Pride stood back at a safe distance as Danse fired into its fuel tank, destroying it. Superior technology couldn’t be allowed to fall into the wrong hands. Thankfully, they had full packs of supplies and luxury goods to trade with the clanholds that dotted the southern Commonwealth.

            “Danse.” Haylen’s voice was grim as she looked up at her commanding officer, small brown disks in her hand. “I took the liberty of manufacturing fake eye-covers for you so no one realises you’re a synth.”

            He hadn’t considered that problem. Found on a rubbish dump in Rivet City by Cutler about twelve years ago, he’d come to be accepted as a synth despite his eerie eyes, an example of technology being put to good use for the sake of humanity. But something had made him flee the Commonwealth, even if he didn’t recall what it was. Best to pass for human.

            Danse stood still as Cutler, who had the most delicate touch, removed his eyes. Blindly, he waited for them to be socketed back in, reaching out every other sense to remain on watch.

            Once returned, his visual acuity wasn’t perfect, but he could still see. It would have to do.

            They marched through the gathering gloom towards the tall spire of a church. “That should be Quincy, one of the few freeholds around here,” Cutler said, nodding in the distance.

            “You put us in a good spot to start our search,” Haylen approved. “Quincy was the location of the Killian distillery.”

            Cutler flashed a grin at the Scribe. “Always happy to serve, my dear.”

            It was Danse who detected the first ambush. Three soldiers in khaki-green with skulls on their faces rose out of the dead bushes that surrounded the cracked old-world road with lasers. The three died within moments as the Paladin activated VATS and made clean headshots.

            “Those tattoos make excellent targets,” he observed dryly. “Stay focused – looks like Quincy is hostile.”

            Rhys took anything portable or dangerous from the corpses before they pressed on towards the freehold.

            By the third attack, Lyon’s Pride had gotten so sick of the soldiers that they began to set reverse ambushes as scouts were sent from Quincy to find missing patrols. It was a long, tedious battle of attrition that went through the night almost to dawn the next day.

            They reached the heart of Quincy and found two soldiers in power armour with a third in heavy combat plate. “Who the fuck are you?” demanded the one wearing a cowboy hat. “You’ve killed most of our squad.”

            “Your soldiers fired on us first,” Danse retorted flatly. “We were coming to Quincy on honest business.”

            The one in combat plate pursed his lips. “They’re Brotherhood,” he said in a heavy Capital accent. “Should just let them go through.”

            “Baker, we can take them,” said the woman in power armour. “They shot up fifteen Gunners.”

            “Don’t be stupid, Tessa,” Baker retorted. “They’re not just Brotherhood. They’re Lyon’s Pride. The best of the best.”

            The hat-wearing soldier looked at the Brotherhood soldiers. “What brings you to Quincy?”

            “We’re looking for old records that might shed some light on early Brotherhood history,” Haylen responded. “We’re willing to drop the matter of your dead soldiers attacking us first if you are.”

            Cowboy smiled easily. “Sure, sure. Anywhere you need to go in particular?”

            “The church records and the Killian distillery,” Danse said.

            “Church records are long gone. But the Killian place is still intact but crawling with ferals.” Baker smiled toothily. “Clear that out and we’ll forgive you the dead soldiers.”

            “Fine.” Danse didn’t trust them as far as he could throw a vertibird. He would be laying out mines as they cleared the Killian distillery.

            The Gunners let them through and once out of earshot, Rhys observed, “They’re going to wait until our guard is down.”

            “I know. Once we clear the entrance, lay frag mines. We’ll have to watch our backs as well as our fronts.”

            The ghouls in the Killian distillery were simple shamblers, easily dispatched, but for the glowing one who stood in the heart of the distillery. Most of them wore the lion-and-clover crest, either tattooed into their flesh or on pendants around their necks, and Danse felt a stab of pity for the clansfolk. If Haylen was correct, they were early allies of the Maxsons, and so they deserved to be honoured as such.

            They’d just reached a still-intact terminal when the first of the frag mines went off. Danse smiled savagely and loaded up a fresh fusion core to his power armour.

            In the end, it came down to Cowboy and Tessa in their power armour – which was damaged from the frag mines. “Think you’re fucking clever, don’t you?” Cowboy sneered. “I’m gonna-“

            Cutler, eyes rolling, shot him in the head. Idiot should have worn a helmet instead of a cowboy hat.

            Danse took on Tessa and of the Gunners, she gave the best fight, but against a synth the conclusion was foregone. When it was over, he stepped out of the power armour, bleeding from several places.

            “Ad Victoriam,” he gasped before collapsing.

…

The Church of the Holy Spirit thought Sparrow was too overqualified and suggested she try one of the local law firms. The congregation was also full and not looking for more members. At least Irish ones; the Lexington Catholics were mostly Polish and there was some bad blood there.

            With a sigh, she left the small church and stood outside under scudding grey clouds. She couldn’t stand the thought of going home and admitting defeat on this day. Couldn’t stand the thought of eating another morsel of food that had been soaked in blood.

            “Sparrow.”

            “Please go away,” she said, turning to Nate Finlay. “I’m not really in the mood to deal with anyone at the moment.”

            Nate was one of her father’s boys, a crime clan enforcer-turned-killer who was known for his high body count and knack for achieving improbable missions. He was also ambitious, wanting what Frances Killian had. Unfortunately, he seemed to think she would be interested in him.

            “I saved you from a lot of trouble last night,” Nate said, losing the jocularity he displayed around her parents and showing the cold-eyed killer beneath. “I’d expect a little more gratitude-“

            “You deliberately executed Maureen O’Malley in such a manner that she’ll be buried as a suicide,” Sparrow interrupted icily, speaking Irish Gaelic as not to alert the passers-by. She was exhausted and soul-sick, not stupid after all.

            “She was a traitor. You haven’t been up in Alaska in the snow and blood, Reds shooting at you every few steps.” Nate stepped closer, green-hazel eyes hard. “I’m not expecting love. I am, however, keeping track of the debts your parents owe me and I’ll collect it in kind.”

            She looked the tall, lean soldier up and down. “I find you about as sexually attractive as a pig, Nate. _Go away_.”

            “You’re an idiot. You have everything and you’d throw it away over some stupid idea of conscience.” Nate sounded disgusted with her. “Grow up, Sparrow. The world is an awful place. The sooner you realise that, the sooner you’ll thrive.”

            Her troubled thoughts crystallised into an understanding of how to deal with her situation. “Perhaps I should leave the world then, Nate.”

            He stared at her. “Suicide’s a mortal sin.”

            “Who said I needed to commit suicide to leave the world?” Sparrow turned away from him. “Goodbye, Nate.”

            “Don’t you turn your back on- Ack!”

            She spun around to see Arthur Maxson slam Nate into the brick wall of the church, thick arm around the soldier’s throat. “She told you to leave her alone, Finlay. Do it or I will bury you so deep that the radroaches won’t find your bones.”

            Nate tried to pull Arthur’s arm away but the burly man didn’t so much as budge. In the green linen shirt and denim jeans that had belonged to a younger Frances Killian, he was a bulwark of bone and muscle.

            Finally, the assassin nodded and Arthur reluctantly released him. The passers-by kept on walking. The Polish community of Lexington knew better than to involve themselves in a fight over a woman. Though if they didn’t leave soon, the Pierogi Posse would intervene in a couple Irish clansmen raising hell in their territory.

            “We need to go. This is Pierogi territory,” Sparrow told Arthur in Latin. “Polish crime clan, so to speak.”

            Nate could take care of himself.

            They walked to the bus station near Corvega Assembly Plant. Soon enough, the bus to Concord arrived and Sparrow paid for their tickets. Once the bus started moving again, they sat up in the back to speak undisturbed.

            “Did he hurt you?” Arthur rasped, eyes burning.

            “No.” She looked away from those blue eyes. “He’s… ambitious. Wants to marry into the clan.”

            “He considers you as his.” Arthur’s tone said exactly what he thought of that attitude.

            “I’m not. I belong to me.”

            “I know, Gealbhan.” His words were sighed through full lips. Even with that wicked scar across his right cheek, Arthur was a handsome man.

            _I need to put my mind away from earthly things,_ she thought. She couldn’t speak up about what was going on. She couldn’t accept the profits of her parents’ actions anymore. It was likely she wouldn’t get a secular job because her mother would quash every attempt.

            But there was always one choice a clansperson could take if they couldn’t abide the world – take vows and enter the Church’s purview.

            “You’re going to talk to the priests, aren’t you?”

            Sparrow looked at Arthur in surprise. “How did you know that?”

            “Because it is…” He swallowed thickly and looked down. “It is the only choice. Your death is unacceptable. You cannot abide your parents’ home anymore. Finlay will not have you.”

            “I wish I could say I was doing it for the glory of the Lord,” she agreed with a sigh. “But it’s the only way out.”

            “And perhaps the Creator arranged things in such a way to bring you to this decision.” Arthur looked out the window. “Will you go home to your parents or do you wish for it to be done, then tell them?”

            She thought quickly. “I think it’s better I approach the Diocese and then tell my parents. My undergraduate degree at Harvard was in the humanities stream, so I can attend the Divinity School and shave a semester off a Masters of Divinity. The challenging thing will be to live on my own for a year as if I were under vows already.”

            “Harvard?”

            “The university. It’s near C.I.T.” Sparrow sighed. She would probably be better going to a nunnery but she was honest enough to admit that she had the hope of marriage in the future. When women were accepted into the priesthood by the second-last Pope, no doubt as an attempt to raise flagging numbers of clergy, the vows were also loosened to include marriage and children so long as the cleric was chaste outside of it.

            Sparrow was honest enough to admit that the vows of chastity were going to be hard. She liked handsome men, especially soldiers. She enjoyed sex. She-

            “I owe you a debt. I will help you in this.” Arthur regarded her with those vivid blue eyes. “I think your father would approve as well. He has no desire for you to follow in his or your mother’s footsteps.”

            “Oh.”

            Arthur lifted her hand and kissed it in a courtly manner. Except that the brush of his lips against her skin made her ache for more intimate contact.

            “I don’t know where the priests are in this city. Can you tell us where we should go?”

            She tugged him to his feet at the next stop. They needed to catch another bus.

…

The pre-War had entire schools just for priests.  In the Wasteland, a person who wanted to be a preacher learned the Good Book, chose the Old Rite or the New (depending on whether they considered the Mother of God as equal to Her Son or not) and was confirmed by another priest. According to Gealbhan, the process was very complicated and could take a few years of learning and proving she could be a priest.

            “Or I could join the nuns and be celibate for the rest of my life,” she said wryly. “But me and celibacy would make for poor bedfellows.”

            Now that the decision had been reached, she looked more at peace. So as she entered the chapel at Cambridge, Arthur decided to go to the nearest phone booth and call Frances with her permission. He made sure to do everything with her permission. He also related the incident with Nate Finlay.

            Frances sighed over the phone. “Liz will be wild. But it’s a good compromise if the colleen can stick to it. She’s smart enough to know when silence is the best option.”

            “Why do you rarely call her ‘Sparrow’ but instead ‘the colleen’?”

            “’Colleen’ means ‘lass’ in Irish and… Gealbhan is her real name. Her mother insisted on Sparrow though for the records.” Frances sighed again. “Ye go check on her. I need to make some arrangements.”

            Arthur hung up. Frances would be transferring the money he’d put aside for her to an account so she could live off it. The money was ‘laundered’, which was to say cleaned of traces to crime clan or government, and could be used. Maybe not without conscience – Gealbhan was too intelligent not to wonder where it came from – but it could be used.

            Gealbhan emerged soon after, a frail-looking man in black by her side. “Thank you for clearing that up about Mother O’Malley,” he was saying to her. “I think she’d be proud of you for choosing this path.”

            “You’re welcome, Father,” she told the priest.

            “I will see you this Sunday.” His eyes twinkled when he saw Arthur. “Go and think about the commitments you want to make.”

            “Thank you.” Gealbhan nodded to him and he traced the cross on her forehead in blessing.

            “Go with God.”

            After the priest returned to the chapel, Arthur nodded to her. “I spoke to your father. He’s making some arrangements so you won’t have to worry about money. Something about it being cleaned.”

            Gealbhan sighed. “Father McDermott has agreed to take me on as a church secretary while I pursue the Masters of Divinity. I know Dad means well, but…”

            “The money will be there whether you use it or not. Refusing it will just mean it will be used elsewhere, perhaps in a less worthy cause.” Arthur looked down at Gealbhan. “Finding your conscience doesn’t mean you need to lose your pragmatism.”

            She looked up at him with those radstag-doe eyes. “You’re a persuasive bastard, Arthur Maxson.”

            He stared down at her coral-hued lips. Then he lowered his mouth to hers, just meaning for it to be a quick brush of the lips, but she returned the kiss desperately. Arthur deepened it until someone quietly cleared their throat behind them.

            “Chastity _before_ marriage,” Father McDermott said pointedly, having stuck his head outside the chapel unnoticed. “Though I see the reason why you’re so keen on finding a new path in life.”

            Gealbhan’s cheeks went a deep scarlet as Arthur nodded to the priest. “Sorry, my fault,” he admitted.

            “Patience is a virtue, young man,” the old man advised with a twinkle in his eye.

            “Yes, sir.” McDermott reminded Arthur a lot of old Owyn Lyons, his foster father.

“It wouldn’t hurt _you_ to think on the commitments you’d make as the husband of a would-be priest,” McDermott added dryly.

            Arthur’s hand tightened on Gealbhan’s shoulder before she could say anything. Frances was the only one he’d revealed the truth to and only because the clansman had demanded it. Gealbhan, undergoing her moral crisis, wouldn’t be able to cope with it… yet. “Yes, sir.”

            “Good. Now you’d better go home. C.I.T’s all over some strange energy reading in the harbour.” The priest’s tone said plenty on what he thought about the Institute.

            “Goodbye, Father.” Gealbhan’s cheeks were still scarlet and her expression mortified.

            “Godspeed, Sparrow.” The old man nodded and went back inside.

            She remained silent until they were near the Cambridge Police Station, which had once been a Brotherhood base. Or will be. It was sometimes hard for Arthur to recall that his past was this world’s mutable future. “Arthur…”

            Before she could say anything, a lean man with sallow skin and hooked nose exited the police station, his fedora and trench coat familiar even if Arthur had never seen him as a human. “Nick Valentine,” the former Elder breathed.

            “You must be that Maxson boy Frances told me about,” the detective drawled.

            “What did he say?” Arthur asked warily. If Nick knew everything-

            “O’Leary clan, ex-military, Nigel Maxson’s illegitimate son that recently came to light.” Nick’s light amber eyes were shrewd and Arthur remembered the synth had pried more information out of him than he’d wanted during their one meeting.

            “I’m right here, Uncle Nick,” Gealbhan said tartly.

            Nick smiled and held out his arms. “How’s my favourite goddaughter?”

            She hugged him tightly and whispered something into the older man’s ear. There was something about his speech that was almost clan but not. It was a Commonwealth accent though.

            “The church, huh?” Nick rubbed his clean-shaven chin after letting her go. “You’re too gentle for the police and too honest for the clans. Probably the best choice if you’re going your own way.”

            “Dad says there’s some money available. Knowing you, there was a hand in that.”

            “It came from moonshine sales,” Nick said gently. “Your father’s share of the clan income.”

            “Is there anyone in authority who _isn’t_ corrupt around here?” Arthur muttered in Latin.

            “Not in Massachusetts,” Gealbhan told him sadly. “The Killians run an illegal distillery down south and trade in smuggled civilian goods like fusion cores and medicines. Sometimes, we’re the only source of these things for the poorer folk. Things are… fairly calm here. Not elsewhere.”

            Nick raised an eyebrow and Gealbhan shook her head. “Clan business. It’s… complicated.”

            “With Finlay hanging around like a vulture I can see why your father brought this boy in,” the detective noted quietly.

            She murmured something in Irish – Maureen O’Malley’s name was involved – and Nick’s eyes hardened.

            “I’ll see if I can’t haul that little mongrel in on possession charges,” he said grimly. “He’s got to be packing at least one illegal firearm.”

            “He has a laser pistol strapped to his left thigh,” Arthur rasped.

            “Thanks.” Nick cracked his knuckles. “You don’t target priests, civilians or people in a church or home. Maureen O’Malley was a good woman. Whatever she did, she deserved a cleaner death than she got.”

            “Crime clan rules of engagement,” Gealbhan explained softly.

            Arthur had never considered that there might be a code of honour that Frances and his ilk followed. Gealbhan obviously knew it off by heart and he recalled some of her lectures in the future/past about what was decent behaviour. Once, he’d been happy to follow those rules until the Nate who joined the Gunners killed her.

            “You going home?” Nick asked her. “Frances told me your mother’s fit to be tied.”

            “Looks like it’s the motel for tonight,” Gealbhan sighed.

            “Go to Fiddlers Green. I’m sure you have enough pocket change for it and it’s the last place your mother will expect.” Nick’s expression was worried.

            Arthur knew about Fiddlers Green because it was a Killian-owned settlement that Frances had planned to send him in a few days. “I have directions to it,” he told the detective.

            “Good. Let her mother cool down for a day or so. Elisabeth doesn’t like her plans being altered but… she’ll get over it.” Nick smiled slightly. “Go and do a little sinning before the whole chastity thing, huh?”

            Gealbhan went bright red again and Arthur hid a smile. It seemed that everyone was making assumptions about their relationship that he could work with. If they were considered betrothed, it would be easier to protect her. And after that kiss, he knew that she desired him.

            “I’ll take care of her,” he promised Nick. He didn’t want the detective to start working things out and asking awkward questions until Arthur was firmly established in this time.

            It was strange how he understood him as a man but loathed him as a synth though.

            “Thanks.” Nick nodded and left them alone.

            “We better get a taxi,” Arthur murmured. “You heard what McDermott said about night in Cambridge.”

            Gealbhan nodded, her expression tight. “When we get to Fiddlers Green, we’re going to have a talk.”

            “We will, I promise.”


	4. Revelations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: Thanks for reading and reviewing. Mentions of death, violence and massacre. Smut in this chapter.

 

_Killian Distillery, Quincy, Commonwealth 2287_

Even synths could be injured and Danse, pumping with adrenaline during the battle, had managed to get himself banged up pretty damned well. He was forced to stay in bed under Haylen’s eye as Rhys and Cutler searched the ruins of Quincy, finding signs of a massacre that sickened even the hardened Knight. There were plenty of good weapons and the power armour both Clint (a traitor who’d abandoned his old militia) and Tessa wore was salvageable. That meant there was armour for both Rhys and Cutler, whether they liked it or not.

            Haylen was almost giddy with excitement as she plumbed the depths of the Killian distillery and its records. There was enough of the clan’s whiskey left to buy half the Capital Wasteland and the Scribe was certain she could adapt the recipes on the terminal to razorgrain and wild corn. Before the massacre, Quincy had been an important freehold, located on the northern trade routes between the Capital Wasteland and the Commonwealth. Even now it could be salvaged if they could find people to hold it.

            After a week, Danse was walking and Haylen gathered them together to reveal what she’d found.

            “I’ve found more references to Arthur. The Killians believed he had ‘an dara radharc’ – the Second Sight. Frances anticipated the war but it was Arthur who foresaw how it would begin. That’s how Quincy survived as a freehold – because the Killians were prepared and warned the Murphies, another powerful crime clan family, and they joined forces.”

            Cutler leaned against the dingy plaster wall. “A psyker Maxson? That’d explain why he wasn’t mentioned in the main lineage records, what with the traditional Brotherhood ideals on blood purity and all.”

            “Possibly,” Haylen agreed. “Or it could be due to the fact that Nigel Maxson didn’t die without issue. He died without _official_ issue. Arthur was apparently his bastard.”

            Rhys’s eyebrows met above his scarred nose. “So the ‘lost Maxson’ is a psyker bastard. Are you sure it’s worth chasing this up, love?”

            Haylen arched an eyebrow at her husband. “We can’t go back. We’re likely deserters by now.”

            “But if we stayed, we would have died,” Cutler pointed out. “You know Lyon’s Pride was never liked by the traditionalists.”

            Danse cleared his throat and the other three looked in his direction. “There was another team who went north – Recon Squad Artemis. Remember, old Brandis, Astlin and the rest.”

            “I remember,” Rhys confirmed.

            “Brandis is a tough old codger and they were all crack veterans. He was also unhappy with the politicking out West, that’s why he came to us.” Danse leaned forward and steepled his fingers. “We need to find them. Not only will our own ranks swell but we will have the support of a Paladin whose lineage stretches back to the founding.”

            Haylen was the first to catch on. “You’re talking about establishing a new chapter.”

            “Possibly,” Danse admitted. “Quincy is too strategic a location to abandon. I can’t leave fortifications that can be used by my enemy at my back.”

            “You might be right, Danse, but the fact remains you’re a synth,” Rhys pointed out. “You can’t be an Elder. Hell, you being a Star Paladin raised eyebrows.”

            “That’s why we need Brandis.” Danse smirked at the Knight. “The other option for Elder is you or Cutler.”

            Cutler was already shaking his head. “I am _not_ leadership material.”

            “We noticed,” Haylen said dryly. “But don’t dismiss the ‘lost Maxson’ so easily. Psyker powers don’t run in families; if there’s an heir in Vault 111 or a bloodline around, we could have a potential Elder for a new chapter.”

            Rhys’ lips pursed. “If this was just an excuse-“

            _“No!”_ Danse’s voice was harsh. “This wasn’t an excuse to abandon our posts. We would have been… removed… because we were loyal to Sarah and Jamie. We know the Lone Wanderer’s death wasn’t an accident.”

            The Knight nodded reluctantly. “I know, just… I was born to the Brotherhood. My ancestors joined up after saving Jeremy Maxson’s life. Making a new chapter will just fragment it more.”

            “I know. It’s not a step we’d take lightly.” Danse focused on the pixelated blur that was Rhys’ face. “My allegiance is to the Brotherhood as it should be. A force that uses technology for the greater good and keeps dangerous weapons out of dangerous hands.”

            “I’d follow you into hell, Danse, synth or not,” Rhys said softly. “I just don’t want another civil war like what happened in the West.”

            “Neither do we,” Danse told him. “That’s why we need to either find the lost Maxson lineage or confirm it has ended. That will allow a new bloodline to take command, if there’s any worthy ones that remain.”

            He looked at each of his people. “Are you with me?”

            Rhys just beat Cutler to a salute and Haylen was only third because of the file in her hand.

            “Thank you.” Danse turned to Haylen. “Where do we go next?”

            Her expression was bleak. “Cambridge. Home of the Institute. And apparently where Gealbhan Killian did her training as a priestess of the Old Rite at a place called Harvard.”

            Cutler’s eyebrow shot up. “Gealbhan was a priestess?”

            “According to the records, yes. She studied something called Humanities and pre-War Law and then developed a vocation around the time she met Arthur Maxson.” Haylen bit her bottom lip, eyes twinkling. “Apparently she had trouble with the ‘vows of chastity outside marriage’ thanks to her relationship with him.”

            “What the fuck is chastity?” Cutler asked bluntly.

            “Something to do with not having sex for religious reasons,” Haylen replied.

            “That’s the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard.”

            “That’s why you’re not a cleric, Cutler,” Rhys said dryly. “Some of the Scribes back West, those who follow the Steel Rite, took vows abstaining from sexual intercourse. They claimed it led them to understand the will of the Creator better.”

            Cutler shuddered. He was a very randy man. “Danse, please don’t ever take a vow like that.”

            “I won’t. It seems pointless to me but then, I’m not a priest.” Danse smiled at his lover.

            “Thank the Steel for that.”

            “Ahem.” Haylen cleared her throat. “We need to make plans to go to Cambridge. If the trader’s map Rhys found in the Longs’ store is correct, it’s about a day’s walk or so north of here. Unfortunately, there are raiders, clanholds and all sorts of unpleasant critters.”

            Danse nodded. “Rhys, Cutler, I want you to do recon runs in power armour, find the nearest settlements and clanholds. Tell them that Quincy’s been cleared of Gunners and that it’s open for resettlement. Maybe those refugees who escaped with the last of the Minutemen will come back.”

            “On it,” Cutler said with a sigh. “Why are you making me walk in power armour?”

            “Because I’m still injured. Besides, think of it as a tank you move around.”

            Rhys rubbed his chin. “We’ll start with the Cait Adamh – the Atom Cats. They’re a clanhold about an hour or so away that specialised in power armour. Sturges, the local handyman, was a friend of theirs.”

            “Good idea. If the Gunners wiped them out, we might still be able to salvage stuff.” Danse nodded to the Knight approvingly. “I want you two to stay together.”

            “Understood.”

            Danse sighed. His wounds were aching and he was tired. “We’ll do it tomorrow. Haylen, ready a trade pack for them to take. If the clans are anything like their Capital Wasteland counterparts, hospitality will be a huge thing, and we want to treat them with respect.”

            “Of course.” Haylen smiled at him. “Reckon a bottle of Killian Green Label Whiskey should do the trick.”

            “Creator knows we have enough of it.” He preferred bourbon himself but he should probably never admit that. “Get some rest, we have a long few days ahead of us.”

…

Her father was waiting for them at Fiddlers Green.

            “Yer mother thinks this is a youthful rebellion thing,” he said bluntly as Sparrow and Arthur walked up to the cabin she’d be staying in. “She thinks ye’re having a hissy fit over Mother O’Malley’s death.”

            Sparrow refrained from mentioning she’d told Oisin McDermott, under the silence of confession, that Nate had murdered Maureen. The old priest was a canny politician as well as Harvard’s Catholic spiritual advisor; he would see that Maureen got the burial in blessed soil she deserved. “What do you think?” she asked instead.

            Frances sighed. “I figured ye’d either go to the Church or the scholars. If the Diocese approves and Harvard accepts ye in the Divinity School, the fees will be paid in full the next day.”

            She folded her arms. “Boston Diocese provides scholarships-“

            “That should go to those without the money to pay for the schooling.” Her father’s rough features were adamant. “The fees will come from my side of yer inheritance, colleen. Let the cash do ye and the world some good.”

            “I don’t like this,” she told him. “I want to be free of all this… shit.”

            “Ill times are coming. Hell, in parts of America, they’re already here.” Frances’ soft brogue was grim. “Yer Arthur’s got the Second Sight, colleen. He’s already told me things that checked out.”

            She threw a startled glance at Arthur. The Second Sight wasn’t unknown to the clans but it was generally the province of the Murphy women, who prophesised fortunes after a shot of whiskey or chewing on some Mentats. “Then what the hell was that light?”

            He met her gaze calmly. “It was Institute technology.”

            She got the feeling he wasn’t telling her everything. “You’re not my-“

            “Gealbhan.” At the use of her clan name, Sparrow looked at her father. “It’s him or Finlay. He’s been bothering yer mother and she likes the idea of a tame killer.”

            “Nate Finlay is no ‘tame killer’,” Arthur rasped. “He kills for power and personal reasons.”

            Sparrow glared at her father. “You’ve decided this rather nicely between you two, haven’t you?”

            Frances regarded her grimly. “Ye’re a woman grown and joining the Church won’t abrogate yer responsibilities to the clan. Maxson still has to woo and win ye, colleen. But the clan needs him, it needs this and it needs ye.”

            The cloak of responsibility settled on her shoulders, leaden and unwanted. “You bastard.”

            “I speak as Clan-Chief, not yer father, if it makes ye feel better.”

            Her fists clenched. “Mar sin, go mbeadh sé.”

            The traditional words of accepting the Clan-Chief’s orders. “So be it”, but implying so much more.

            Frances relaxed, sighing heavily. “Gealbhan, Arthur loved ye before ye two ever met. He’s Clan-Chief material and in these days, we need the Second Sight.”

            “There’s no one else…?” The Killians weren’t a big clan but they weren’t small either. The cousins down at Quincy numbered in the high forties.

            “Not unless we bring in Eamon, who married into the Murphies. Before ye ask, some of that cross-checking I did was with the current Mother Murphy.”

            Sparrow bit her lip. Mother Murphy was the senior oracle of the family. The Killians and the Murphies had always gotten on, as the former’s speciality of smuggling civilian and luxury goods fed in directly to the latter’s sphere of chem production, which was often turned to illegal copies of medicine that were sold for cheap to the less fortunate in the community.

            “What about Mother?” Elisabeth Killian would not be happy with her plans being thwarted.

            “Liz needs to learn that the Killians are allies, not her minions.” Frances’ voice was bleak. “I will try to talk some sense into her.”

            “Dad…”

            “Colleen, go enjoy yer last few days of freedom before ye take vows.” Frances’ smile was a weak thing. “Ye can stay here while ye study.”

            “…Yes, Dad.” There was no arguing with Frances when he went into one of his fatalistic moods.

            “I’ll call ye in the morning.” He nodded to her and Arthur. “Ye’re not a colleen now, Gealbhan. Time ye started acting like it.”

            He walked down the path past the cabins where old employees of the clan who didn’t have their own homes were kept, leaving Sparrow staring at his back. She had a horrible feeling about all of this.

            “Will he be alright?” she asked Arthur.

            “I don’t know,” he admitted softly. “I don’t know everything.”

            “My father’s putting a lot of trust in you,” Sparrow told him.

            “I know. He’s not… what I expected him to be.” Arthur sighed and shook his head. “What you call the future, I call a past I’ve already lived. It’s hard to explain without you taking me for a madman.”

            She looked at him wryly. “Since I’ve met you I’ve gone from planning a career as a lawyer to taking vows as a priest. At this rate, I’ll believe almost anything.”

            Maxson raised his vivid blue eyes. “Then believe that I love you and you are the one person I will do my best to never hurt.”

            His body language proclaimed the truth. There were so many contradictions about who and what Arthur Maxson was. But this was the unadulterated truth.

            Sparrow turned towards the door. It was nothing on her family’s brick home in Concord but it was certainly less grief. She just hoped that her mother didn’t decide to treat Frances as an enemy for helping her do this.

            The interior was spartan, the furniture old and ratty. But as Arthur shut the door behind them, eyes burning, she realised that it didn’t matter. God knew she’d fucked on any number of surfaces that were rougher than a dubious queen bed.

            Floundering in the uncertainty of her life these past few days, she reached for that thick waist to draw Arthur closer. Breasts against broad chest, thick arms sliding down to her ass, a half-hard cock poking her belly – this was a certainty she could anchor herself with. Maxson’s kiss was hungry, his lips devouring hers before travelling down her neck and unerringly finding all the places that made her weak in the knees.

            She could believe that he loved her before they’d ever met when he sucked at the join of neck and shoulder with the perfect amount of pressure.

            He removed her blouse with deliberate slowness but displayed impatience with the bra, a flex of those powerful arm muscles tearing the satin like tissue paper. Then his beard scratched her breasts as he mouthed them, her nipples hardening under the scrape of teeth and lave of tongue, and Sparrow knew she needed to sit down on the bed.

            Large hands pulled down her panties and skirt, leaving her sex bare and Sparrow felt his breath against the folds she shaved as a matter of personal preference. Then his tongue parted her lips, tasting the warm slick, and she lost her train of thought completely.

…

Arthur trusted that Frances could handle himself and instead focused on Gealbhan. He would save her, in this time or another, and if that meant taking over the Killian clan then so be it. Finlay needed to die. He would not let Nate so much as lay a hand on his priestess.

            The lack of pubic hair was a surprise, one that he realised he liked despite the subtle stubble that pricked his lips, and she tasted much as she had in the past/future. Arthur went down on her until her hips lifted desperately, wanting to show that no man knew her as well as he did. Gealbhan responded now as she would/did, soft mewling cries and a low keen that hardened his cock fully.

            When she was on the verge of orgasm, he stopped, earning a brown-eyed glare that softened when he removed his own clothing to release his aching erection. “Fuck,” she breathed.

            Arthur allowed himself a dark grin. “Your wish is my command.”

            He stepped in and tucked his elbows under her knees, enjoying the sight of his priestess wanton and willing. Another time, he might torment her a little by rubbing the tip of his cock against her slit, but today he was too impatient. Three years without Gealbhan. Three years of blood and grief and ashes-

            Arthur buried himself to the hilt and shuddered at the familiar feel of tight inner walls around his cock. “Gealbhan,” he breathed as she moaned a little.

            “Arthur,” she sighed.

            The former Brotherhood Elder began to thrust, losing himself in the moment. Whatever reason the Creator had sent him back in time, he’d been rewarded with the presence of the woman he loved.

            Past/present/future became one, the only thing that mattered her pleasure and his. Arthur rubbed her clit as he remembered, groaning harshly as she tightened around him, and used every ounce of his discipline and stamina to fuck himself into her very bones. After him, there would be no one else.

            They climaxed simultaneously and Arthur felt his seed jet into her womb. Sweaty and sated, he lowered her legs and rested on his shoulders as not to crush her, looking down into that beautiful beloved face.

            “You know me,” she breathed in awe. “You know how I like to be fucked.”

            “Because your future is my past,” he said, pressing gentle kisses to her damp forehead. “I am not insane. Your father believes me. And the Murphies are still oracles in the future.”

            The softness left her eyes to be replaced by shrewdness. “What are you implying, Arthur?”

            “That flash you saw, the one that landed me in the water? That was a teleporter that threw me and another back in time.” Arthur prayed for her to believe him.

            “Who’s the other?”

            “Someone who was sent to kill one of my ancestors so I didn’t exist.” Arthur debated how much to tell her and then decided on a sparse version of the truth. “I… am not a good man. Not after I lost you in the future. My enemy, the ones who killed you while trying to kill me, were desperate because I tore their damn building down around their ears for the sake of vengeance. Now there is me and a hunter-killer robot in this time. I know it sounds insane but…”

            “It makes a great deal more sense than the half-lies you and Dad fed me,” Gealbhan retorted tartly. “I’m guessing they’re going after Nigel then.”

            Arthur shook his head slowly. “No. That is a convenient lie born of the fact I am obviously a Maxson and he is a serial philanderer. My ancestor is Roger and after the bombs fall, he will found an order dedicated to preserving, studying and protecting technology from those who would misuse it. Like the Institute.”

            “The gears within the winged circle, guarded by the sword,” she murmured.

            “Yes.” Arthur sighed and pressed his forehead to hers. “You will be a good priestess, Gealbhan. Believe me when I say that.”

            She was silent for a while, expression thoughtful. “The Maxsons are a Californian family and I can’t leave the Boston Diocese, not for at least two years, possibly three.”

            “I know.” He’d been wracking his brain trying to think of how to make sure she was safe while he was in the west.

            “Then go to California. I need time to reflect and focus and…” Gealbhan sighed. “You are a terrible distraction, Arthur Maxson. I need to focus on my vows and you will make it very hard to do so.”

            “Marry me before we leave,” he suggested. “That will make it permissible, right?”

            “I’m not allowed to contemplate marriage for the first year,” she answered quietly. “An engagement, yes. But not a marriage. The vows of a priest need to come first. Even married novices are celibate for that year.”

            Arthur winced. A year without her. “I finished in you. What if you’re pregnant?”

            Her lips quirked ruefully. “I’m actually on medical contraception, Arthur. I get it done about once a year.”

            “Oh.” Arthur sighed. “I… just don’t want to lose you now I’ve found you again.”

            “If you _are_ from the future and it is decided by the Lord we’re to be together, then a year won’t seem so long,” she told him gently. “Unless the bombs fall-“

            “We have a few years yet,” he reassured her quickly.

            “That’s a relief. Do you think we could stop them?”

            Arthur was already shaking his head. “No. I don’t have the power to stop whoever presses the button first. All I can do is make certain particular people survive.”

            _Like you._ In her presence, he could think of things like mercy and kindness and compassion. If he lost her again-

            Arthur would press the button to initiate nuclear Armageddon himself. It was no kind of world without Gealbhan in it.

            Determinedly, he reached for her. “If we must be apart for a year or so, then let us make the most of what time we have now.”

…

If Frances hadn’t been one of the most hard-headed, pragmatic people she knew, Elisabeth would have sworn he was insane. But she knew the oracular powers of the Murphies were genuine and even made use of them herself without Frances’ knowledge. This ‘Arthur Maxson’ was prescient and apparently obsessed with Sparrow to the point that he’d talked her into taking vows as a fucking _priest_ , of all things.

            Still, Elisabeth decided to go along with it. Sparrow was more sensible than Maureen O’Malley had been and with a little coaxing, might be willing to break the so-called sanctity of confession. Who knew what treasons went on in the Church, especially under McDermott’s tolerant eye?

            “Word’s gotten back to me that Roger Maxson’s heard about this bastard of Nigel’s,” she finally told her husband. “How should I handle it?”

            “Put him in contact with us,” Frances immediately replied, relieved she wasn’t going to fight him. “He’ll play a big part in the future, Liz.”

            “I can imagine,” she murmured. “As to the rest of it – what are we going to do about Nate Finlay?”

            “Kill him,” Frances said ruthlessly. “Arthur foresaw him killing Sparrow.”

            Was that so? The New York-born enforcer and assassin certainly felt he was entitled to a place at the Killian table, which had been a useful means of manipulation in the past. But he was beginning to become too independent and knowledgeable about particular things. “We can’t have that,” Elisabeth said firmly.

            Sparrow might be in the throes of a belated youthful rebellion at the moment but Elisabeth wouldn’t countenance any harm done to her daughter.

            Still, she hated the idea of wastage and for all his faults, Nate Finlay was an excellent operative. She just needed to render him _obedient_.

            As her husband talked about some of the clan preparations for the nuclear holocaust, Elisabeth smiled inwardly. Time to talk to her tame eggheads at C.I.T.


	5. Understandings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: Thanks for reading and reviewing. Trigger warning for racism and mentions of death, violence and massacre. Time-skip.

 

_Atom Cats Garage, Commonwealth, 2287_

“Hey Zeke, we got ourselves three squares in power armour coming this way!”

            The Cait Adamh had defences that would have done a Brotherhood outpost proud, machine gun turrets and a Sentry Bot, and their power armour was expertly modded beneath the garish paintjobs. The gate guard, a messy-haired woman with the hardened gaze of a raider, held her pipe pistol in a manner that showed some basic skill at firearms.

            Danse held up his armoured fists to show he was unarmed. “We mean no harm to the clanhold.”

            “Honey, the skinny guy moves like a bogged Brahmin in his power armour and the other one is still too new to his suit,” drawled the gate guard in amusement. “You couldn’t hurt us if you intended to.”

            “We took the suits from the Gunner commanders in Quincy,” Danse said mildly. “They’re still learning how to handle it.”

            Her eyebrow shot up as a wiry man with black hair slicked back and sunglasses wandered over to them. “You wiped out the Gunners?”

            “Only after they tried to ambush us,” Cutler said, smiling cheerfully. “But Quincy’s free for settlers once again.”

            “That alone would be worth hospitality, if that’s what you’re seeking,” the man, who wore a greaser leather jacket and jeans, observed quietly. “Rustling up the Gunners’ jimmies is a good way to make friends _and_ enemies in the Commonwealth.”

            “We _are_ seeking hospitality but we can offer a gift to honour the clan’s generosity,” Cutler responded smoothly. He knew what the clans considered good manners the best.

            Zeke (it had to be him) arched an eyebrow. “Who are you? Somehow I don’t think you’re here to join the Cait Adamh.”

            They’d decided honesty was the best policy. “We’re not. I’m Lancer Cutler of Lyon’s Pride from the Brotherhood of Steel, Capital Wasteland Chapter. The big guy’s Star Paladin Danse, the other big guy’s Knight Rhys, and the lady is Scribe Haylen.”

            Zeke’s other eyebrow joined the first. “Little north for you lot? If you’re looking to do recon for an invasion force, I’ll tell you not to bother. The Institute will chew you up and spit you out. Just like they did the Minutemen, the Commonwealth Provisional Government and any other square organised enough to cause trouble.”

            “We’re a recon squad but we’re tracking Brotherhood history where it intersects with early Commonwealth history,” Haylen assured him. “There’s indications that one of our ruling… clans, I guess you could say, were allied to one of the clans from Quincy by marriage.”

            “Inheritance rights, lines of succession, that sort of thing,” Cutler added smoothly. “The main bloodline’s died out but if we can find a cadet lineage – or proof the clan’s dead and done…”

            The leader of the clanhold nodded thoughtfully. “We don’t much hold by that nonsense in the Cait Adamh but the clans up north do, especially in Diamond City. Come on in.”

            The gate guard stepped aside and allowed the Brotherhood soldiers into the Cait Adamh compound. It looked like a pre-War workshop and from the looks of it, the power armour was the T-51b model – more durable than the original T-45s but not as tough as Danse’s T-60.

            He expected more Irish iconography but everything appeared to be standard pre-War ‘hot rod’ aesthetic, garish and bold. But it was relatively clean, the compound was uncluttered and from the looks of it, the Cait Adamh were relatively prosperous. There were three women and four men, most of whom wore leather jackets with a cat and atom cloud on their back, and two in power armour.

            There was a brief discussion in Irish that was a little different from the dialect Danse knew and Cutler frowned in concentration as he tried to follow it. Danse and Rhys were the muscle of Lyon’s Pride, Haylen the brains and the Lancer the face.

            Zeke turned back to them. “Vertibirds were sighted about a day ago heading north.”

            Danse felt a cold thrill through his synthetic veins. “How many and what sigil did they display?”

            “Two and they had the same logo as your armour.” Zeke’s gaze was steady through the sunglasses. “Friends of yours?”

            “…Most likely not,” Danse admitted. “Our leader died recently and whoever took her place… would not consider us of the Brotherhood. But we told the truth. If we can find evidence of a cadet bloodline from our ruling clan, bringing it back could unite disaffected factions once again.”

            “Under Owyn Lyons and his daughter Sarah, Wastelanders like myself, Danse and Cutler were recruited as Initiates, no matter our origins,” Haylen explained softly. “Rhys’ family was wiped out in a clan war out west, the same that destroyed our ruling clan, the Maxsons. The old guard, the Brotherhood who follow tradition blindly and keep membership only to those born of Brotherhood bloodlines, would have killed us outright or sent us to die on some mission.”

            One of the women, slender and ponytailed, raised her eyebrows. “So why stay loyal? Go and make your own clan. That’s what the Cait Adamh did.”

            Danse met her eyes. “We’re too divided already. The Brotherhood of Steel is dedicated to protecting, preserving and understanding technology to avoid another outpacing of science compared to morals. Some Chapters translate that purpose as hoarding military technology and destroying that which cannot be turned to their own use. Elder Owyn felt that it should be used to protect the Wastelanders to the point of neglecting our original mission; that was the first split after the Maxsons died. Sarah was in the middle; she shared civilian technology with those who gave us allegiance and welcomed outsiders who were willing to fight for the Brotherhood’s cause. But for some of her subordinates, even that was too… wasteful and open-minded.”

            Zeke tilted his head. “Where does a sintéiseacha fall?”

            “A… what?” Haylen asked cautiously.

            “Synth. Your Paladin is one of the Institute’s robot-slaves.”

            “The Institute left me on a rubbish heap in Rivet City with no memories of who or what I had been to them,” Danse grated. “My loyalty is to the Brotherhood and what it should be – responsible use of technology in service to humanity. That includes myself.”

            “Hey, easy there.” Zeke held up his hands pacifically. “I appreciate you being honest with me. Because you don’t have the yellow eyes, we thought you were an infiltrator. That’s how the Institute fucks up any group that might get organised enough to bring them down – they sneak in infiltrators to dismantle it. Lorgairí, the Trackers, are their hunter-killers. You meet one of them, _run_.”

            Cutler placed a hand on Danse’s shoulder. “Easy, love. This isn’t the Capital Wasteland, where they know the Soldier of Steel would die to uphold the Litany and Codex.”

            The open display of affection eased some of the tension the other Cait Adamh were showing. Danse stepped out of his armour, the other two following suit – making themselves vulnerable to the two clansfolk who still wore theirs – and the rest vanished.

            “You’re not the only synth that the Institute has left in the trash,” the clansman in power armour noted. “Nick Valentine up in Diamond City was one. Only Gen-2 I ever met with a personality.”

            Haylen’s eyes widened. “Yes! We need to speak to him.”

            “…Haylen?” Rhys looked a little confused.

            “Nick Valentine was an ally of the Killians. The name can’t be a coincidence.” The Scribe looked ready to bounce out the door in excitement.

            “Killians from Fiddlers Green Clanhold?” Zeke asked.

            “Yes. A Maxson married into their clan in the pre-War. We’re chasing that lineage.”

            “The last I heard, they were all dead and ghouls up there.”

            “Not quite.” The female gate guard spoke up. “There’s Cait. She’s the current reigning champion of the Combat Zone, a fighting arena and pub for raiders in Boston’s old theatre district.”

            “If she hangs out there, she won’t want to talk about her family, Rowdy,” Zeke said.

            “I… knew her.” Rowdy’s face was shuttered. “I’ll send a message.”

            Haylen sighed in relief. “That’s most appreciated, ma’am. We’re in your debt.”

            “You’ve been given hospitality and answered honestly,” Zeke said firmly. “The old customs haven’t been _entirely_ wiped out, so it behoves us to help you.”

            Cutler flashed his brilliant smile. “Just as it behoves _us_ to grant gifts of gratitude. Haylen?”

            Grins broke out when she opened the trade-pack to reveal a bottle of Green Label Killian Whiskey, neatly bundled copper wiring, circuitry, gears, springs and screws, and a head-lamp mod put together by Danse while he healed up.

            “Let us make this formal then,” Zeke said smilingly. “To the hearth and board be welcome. Our beds are soft, our whiskey strong and our fires warm.”

            “To the clanhold we show gratitude for the honour of their company,” Cutler responded. “Our weapons are ready to protect you and yours as if we are kin.”

            “And our hands ready to make any mods you require,” Danse added gravely. “You’ve done some good work there but I might know a few tricks you don’t – more efficient wiring, that sort of thing. I can’t share Brotherhood-exclusive mods though.”

            “That’d be really good of you, Paladin,” Rowdy observed. “Who knows? Maybe we’ll make Cait Adamh of you lot.”

            That wasn’t likely but having the other power-armoured faction on their side couldn’t hurt. If the Brotherhood was actively searching for them, their mission had gone from dangerous to almost suicidal – and Lyon’s Pride would need every bit of help they could get in the days to come.

…

_Concord, Boston, 2074_

“I hear that young man of yours is making your studies difficult.”

            Almost a year into her Masters of Divinity and service in the Harvard Catholic chapel under Oisin McDermott, Sparrow knew her mother’s pointed comment was only too accurate and she blushed. She missed the physical contact of sex, the intimacy of a lover’s stubbled cheek rubbing against her tender places, the raw feeling of being fucked into the mattress by a vigorous man. Constant letters and the rare phone call between her and Arthur, now on the western coast pursuing his mission to save his ancestor Roger, weren’t cutting it – though she was beginning to understand the complexity of the man her Clan-Chief had ordered her to wed. She was beginning to see what her future-self, also a priest, saw in him.

            But it didn’t make it any easier when Elisabeth Killian decided to make one of her famous observations.

            “You sound almost approving,” Sparrow noted as Wadsworth sliced up the roast lamb. Today was dinner night at the family home, for all she now lived at Fiddlers Green, and it was just her and her mother.

            “I’ve always trusted the sinners more than the saints,” Elisabeth admitted candidly.

            “I’m not breaking the sanctity of confession, Mom.”

            Elisabeth blinked once and then sighed. “At least you didn’t lose your wits when you found religion.”

            The Boston Brahmin had become resigned to her daughter’s vocation. Much to Sparrow’s surprise, she also knew some of what Arthur had revealed about the future and believed in it. Or at least pretended to in order to humour Frances Killian.

            “I’m not preaching treason and neither’s Father McDermott,” Sparrow continued firmly.

            “I know that. If I thought you were, _you’d_ be under house arrest and _he_ would be in a tragic car accident,” Elisabeth said dryly. “The pair of you are more sensible than Maureen O’Malley.”

            “McDermott’s been playing politics since Grandpa Ahern’s time,” Sparrow pointed out. “He knows when to worry more about the state of someone’s soul than their actions, however questionable.”

            “And necessary.” Elisabeth sighed, rubbing her delicate nose. “I’m a sinner and so’s your father. Your Arthur’s another. It’s people like us that let people like you and McDermott worry about souls.”

            “I know. And it’s people like McDermott and I who remind people like you three that there are higher powers we all answer to in the end.” Sparrow reached over and squeezed her mother’s hand gently. “Mother, I know I entered the novitiate with less than worthy motives, but I’ve come to realise that this is something I _must_ do. I can no more ignore the need of a parishioner for God’s grace than you could ignore a threat to America.”

            Elisabeth smiled briefly and returned the squeeze. “I’ve come to accept that. I should have figured you’d find a way to rebel against us and remain respectable.”

            Wadsworth served up the lamb and roast vegetables. “I must say, Miss Sparrow, you’re awfully thin.”

            “A novice priest’s wage doesn’t cover lamb,” Sparrow told the Mr Handy dryly. “Salisbury Steak’s a feast these days.”

            “I thought your father advanced your inheritance from the clan?” Elisabeth asked with a frown. “You haven’t made any idiotic donations to the Church or anything, have you?”

            “I don’t pay rent at Fiddlers Green and I intend to put the bulk of the inheritance into a home in whatever parish I’m assigned to,” Sparrow said firmly. She didn’t mention that she’d purchased spots on the Vault-Tec waiting list for her and Arthur and the cousins down in Quincy. Elisabeth probably knew already. “It behoves me to live on the same wage as any other Diocese employee – you know, the whole ‘live modestly’ thing.”

            “But do you have to go shopping in Lexington?” Elisabeth asked with a pained expression. “We don’t need the Pierogi Posse trying to achieve a cheap victory by taking out a clanswoman.”

            “Mother, unlike the war you fight, the crime clans have their own rules of engagement,” Sparrow assured her gently. “I’m both clergy and a civilian. So long as I do nothing more than carry polite messages between the Irish crime clans and the Polish ones, I could walk into Marowski’s coffeehouse and have a cup of tea without being harmed.”

            “I thought you were staying out of clan business?” Elisabeth asked, eyes narrowed.

            “I am. I can, however, be an informal emissary for certain things.” Sparrow sighed and began to cut up the perfectly cooked slice of lamb. “Have you heard of Eddie Winter?”

            Elisabeth’s mouth tightened. “I have.”

            “He hasn’t been playing by the rules of engagement.” Sparrow’s knife cut deeper than it should, scratching the plate. “That kid that got shot just outside Fenway Park was his work. The grandson of a Savoldi, paralysed as an ‘example’ to the Italian Mafia.”

            Even the ruthless Elisabeth looked shocked. “That will start a clan war. Fenway Park is firmly Murphy territory.”

            “Except that Mother Murphy Saw it coming and sent a message to Roddy Savoldi, who’s kicking himself for not heeding it.”

            Her mother made a contemptuous noise. “Roddy Savoldi is a fucking idiot and the sooner Magdalena takes over the business, the better.”

            Sparrow arched her eyebrows at her mother. “You keep track of these things?”

            “Of course I do. Your father’s dirtied his hands for many years at my request. The least I can do is ensure Killian prosperity in return.” Elisabeth sighed and ate some of her carrots. “I’ll get Nick transferred back from Chicago to sort it out. Did you hear he’s gotten engaged?”

            Sparrow’s jaw dropped. “Uncle ‘I’m married to my job’ Nick is engaged?”

            “Yes. It was during your final exams before summer holidays. Jennifer Lands. Daughter of British expatriates. Very lovely, very… _innocent_.” Elisabeth shook her head with a sigh. “Arranging the appropriate protection for her will be a bloody nightmare.”

            “I’ll drop a word to Pastor Jackson at St Peters in Cambridge,” Sparrow promised. “If she’s Anglican-“

            “I believe so.”

            “-Then he can have people keep a watch out for her. You know how the Poms can be with their ‘fair English roses’.”

            “I know. I’m a little surprised that the pastor will listen to an Irish Catholic though.”

            Sparrow snorted. “Harvard ties, Mom. He’s my Theology in History teacher.”

            She ate some of the meat. Pragmatism and the need to maintain ties with her mother had won out over her revulsion at the source of the fresh food on the table. She did penance for it though because it was still a sin of hypocrisy.

            “Of course.” Elisabeth chuckled. “I’m pleased to know you haven’t entirely forgotten everything I taught you.”

            “I never did. But the ways you taught me can be used to bring people together as well as find weaknesses to be exploited.” Sparrow scooped up some peas on her fork. “America needs to stand together, Mom. You focus on the enemy – I’ll worry about the homeland, hmm?”

            “I don’t know where you got your optimism,” Elisabeth observed wryly. “It’s not a trait of mine or your father’s.”

            “The world’s so depressing, maybe I need to try and be a bit optimistic,” Sparrow said lightly.

            The rest of dinner was eaten in silence. She didn’t know where her dad was but suspected some kind of clan business. She wondered how Arthur was doing in the west, if Roger would listen to him. She wondered what she’d do if it all went wrong.

…

Nigel Maxson was a micromanaging martinet with a taste for sharply cut officers’ uniforms and a desktop commander’s grasp of strategy, which was to say fuck-all understanding of the true horrors of battle. But he was also a Maxson with the square jawline, strong, slightly off-kilter nose and piercing blue eyes. Looking at him, Arthur was reminded of the portrait of his father in the Lost Hills archives.

            “You _are_ a Maxson,” Nigel noted in a drawl. “Now, seeing as our bloodline has dwindled to my devotedly monogamous brother and myself, who – to put it tactfully – ‘shoots blanks’, I’d dearly love to know where one who looks to be about his mid-twenties came from.”

            Arthur reached into his battlecoat and pulled out a golden pocket watch. With much of the fine engraving worn down by two centuries of handling, only the internal etching was still readable, an intricate cursive script long lost to his future/past. “How open-minded are you?” he challenged, opening the pocket watch to show the interior to Nigel.

            The military bureaucrat examined the cracked crystal watch-face and the inscription, a declaration of love to Roger from his wife Veronica, and arched an eyebrow. “That looks very much like the watch my brother received as a gift. But Elisabeth Killian is more than capable of making a fake one to promulgate some kind of insane plan to discredit one of the most powerful military families in the west.”

            Nigel was smarter than legend painted him – or like Proctor Quinlan, simply ruminated over every possibility pedantically. But this wasn’t helping Arthur now. “Elisabeth Killian only gives a shit about the East Coast in general and Massachusetts in particular,” he replied bluntly. “What I can tell you is that Roger’s in danger and that if he dies, a lot of things will change for the worse.”

            He’d wooed the Brotherhood Outcasts, certain he was a Lyons in everything but name, back to the fold. He’d convinced the rank and file to accept the execution of Paladin Danse, a popular soldier, after it was discovered he was a synth. He’d helped Gealbhan to find the path which would bring her peace centuries earlier. He could convince a fellow Maxson to listen to him.

            “My brother’s a captain in the United States Army. He’s not that important in the scheme of things.”

            “And neither are you, _Lieutenant_.” Arthur emphasised Nigel’s rank pointedly. “Not at the moment. But it’s what he – and you – will become in the future that _is_ important in the greater scheme of things.”

            “Ah.” The implication that he would rise in status and importance – he wouldn’t – worked with Nigel. Of course, things were changing with Arthur’s presence here, so maybe even Nigel would become more than he was. “I won’t ask questions. I’ve learned to do that with you crime clan lot. But you’re indisputably a Maxson and I _did_ spend some time with a woman in Boston a couple decades ago – a wild and wicked youth. I’m sure you understand.”

            “I don’t, actually. At the age of ten my foster sister taught me how to kill a man by stabbing him in the kidneys. I killed my first man at eleven. By thirteen I had this scar. By sixteen I was leading soldiers.” And before the age of ten, he’d been sent by his mother east to be forged into true Steel.

            Nigel looked nonplussed. “ _Don’t_ tell Roger that. He’s very… sentimental about some things.”

            Arthur took that to mean ethical. “I’ll try not to. But he’ll know I’m a trained fighter.”

            “ _Killer_. Be honest, Arthur. No one kills more efficiently than one of Frances Killian’s boys. Even Roger’s seen that Nate Finlay in action.”

            Arthur’s lips almost peeled back in a snarl. Finlay had disappeared but Frances didn’t know what happen to him, only saying, “Liz handled it.”

            What that meant, he didn’t want to know.

            “Finlay is scum. He killed a priest and made it look like suicide, denying her a proper burial.”

            Nigel nodded solemnly. “I can believe that. I understand pragmatism but… that man takes ruthlessness to the extreme.”

            “He kills for power. I kill only when I must, because I must.”

            Nigel’s blue eyes were too wise. “I suspect you’ve killed for bloody vengeance, haven’t you?”

            “…Yes.” What he’d done was ugly, even horrific. The man he was without Gealbhan was not a good one.

            “You Irish have hard hearts and bad tempers when crossed. I shan’t ask but know I understand.” Nigel’s smile was thin. “I’ll claim you as my own and blame the rads at that facility I was assigned to as a Private for the later sterility.”

            “Thank you.” Arthur clasped his ‘father’s’ shoulder in gratitude.

            “Save the thanks until you meet Roger.” Nigel’s voice was now wry. “I’ll have to tell him about the crime clan connections. I won’t mention the watch though.”

            Arthur tucked it back into his battlecoat’s pocket. “The story’s a little more complicated than you might believe.”

            “I won’t ask.” Nigel’s broad shoulders shrugged. “Roger and family are in town. We might as well go meet them.”

            Arthur nodded eagerly. To meet his revered ancestor… “I look forward to it.”

            Nigel’s expression was wry. “That will likely change. My brother is… an _intense_ man.”


	6. Food

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: Thanks for reading and reviewing. Trigger warning for mentions of death, violence, fantastic racism and criminal acts. Muse is finally back! Please remember this is a shifting AU, so people are in places they aren’t in canon.

 

_The Castle, Commonwealth, 2287_

The second day out from Cait Adamh Clanhold, Danse’s team reached an abandoned fortress hung with tattered blue flags bearing a crossed rifle and lightning bolt. Even at this distance, the synth’s superior senses could detect the distinctive reek of mirelurk, and he turned to his companions. It was almost sunset and a secure location was needed. A passing trader named Lucas Miller revealed that vertibirds had crossed over the Commonwealth, reportedly landing in the Boston Airport. If whoever succeeded Sarah as Elder were actively hunting them, they needed a stronghold from which to find the lost Maxsons.

            “We’ll wait until morning,” Cutler immediately said. “Mirelurks are a bitch in daylight – at night, they’re worse.”

            “Affirmative.” Danse sighed and looked for a shelter. The sky was green-tinged, promising a radstorm. _He_ was immune to rads but the others weren’t.

            Eventually they cobbled together a rough lean-to of scavenged wood and Danse stood watch. Synths needed less sleep than humans – less food, less water, less of everything. Sometimes he wondered why his kind hadn’t overthrown the Institute by now.

            The radstorm came in by midnight, washing the land in green-black rain. Danse tasted Abraxo and missed the pure waters of the Capital Wasteland. Were they chasing a fool’s errand into treason? Should they have stayed and accepted whatever fate given to them by the new Elder?

            He was so lost in his reverie that he almost missed the shadow, a darker shape in the green-black deluge, creeping towards them. “Who goes there?” he bellowed, pointing Righteous Authority at the form.

            “So much for discretion,” groused the figure as the others woke up. “Put the gun down, big guy. I’m not gonna hurt you.”

            “I’m not lowering my weapon until I determine who – or what – you are,” Danse retorted.

            The figure sighed heavily and activated a Pipboy’s flashlight, revealing a pale, bald head dominated by mirrored sunglasses. He wore a greaser jacket and jeans not unlike the Cait Adamh. “Name’s Deacon and that’s all you’ll get out of me on that front,” he replied dryly. “What brings Lyon’s Pride so far north with a _very_ generous bounty on their head?”

            “How do you know who-?”

            “I know your name, Paladin Danse. Hell, I even know your synth designation.” Deacon’s smile was thin and sharp as a blade. “Don’t know your recall code though.”

            A red dot appeared on the skulker’s forehead. “Talk. Now,” Cutler ordered.

            “Lancer Cutler. Long way from selling scrap under the leaky part of the Rivet City marketplace, aren’t you?” Deacon asked. “I think I once bought a broken lamp from you. Maybe.”

            “How about tell us your business here and I don’t turn you into scrap,” Cutler suggested. He was sensitive about his past though there was nothing to be ashamed of.

            “I was just checking out the scenery,” Deacon observed glibly.

            “Answer. The. Fucking. Question.” Cutler’s weapon didn’t waver a bit.

            “Just so you know, we’re making enough noise to wake the mirelurks,” Deacon said cheerfully. “So, I’m gonna leave. If you want more answers, follow the Freedom Trail.”

            The lurker then… vanished. One minute he was there, the next gone.

            “Stealth Boy. Fuck.” Cutler kicked a pebble angrily.

            Then they heard the noises of enraged mirelurks. Danse barely made it to his power armour in time while Cutler and Rhys went straight for weapons.

            The fight began with softshell mirelurks and ended with a big queen. Danse’s power armour was battered to no end and he went through a precious fusion core while the other sustained minor injuries. It was nearly dawn by the time they finished clearing out all the hatchlings. On the upside, they had enough mirelurk eggs and meat to preserve. On the downside, they’d depleted precious resources.

            …The fortress _was_ impressive though and had a direct view of the Airport – where yes, vertibirds were coming and going.

            “This doesn’t look good,” Haylen said. “Not good at all.”

            Danse was of a mind to agree with her.

…

_Cambridge, 2074_

Sparrow pinched her nose and begged the Lord to give her patience. The crowd outside the food bank was already too much for the resources inside – and not all of them were in much-mended garments. Rationing was getting tighter every year as the war drained resources America could ill afford to lose. Sooner or later, even her family would feel the pinch. On a novice’s salary, she already was.

            When the doors opened, Sparrow stood up behind the desk and quelled those who were trying to jostle past others by dint of being older or more physically able with a pointed look. Elisabeth Killian’s patented death glare, guaranteed to stop a Commie traitor in their tracks, was a useful weapon in a priest’s arsenal. “One person from each household only,” she announced calmly. “And if I see anyone trying to shove a weaker person aside, I’ll personally throw you out.”

            The jostlers slunk back into place guiltily as Sparrow picked up the files from the diocese that indicated who was permitted to access the food bank. “I will call out the names in order of greatest need-“

            “It should be alphabetically!” interrupted a skinny brown-haired woman that Sparrow remembered from confession.

            “Oh, Jenny Bell? Shall I tell old Mrs Vintner that you’re more important than her?” Sparrow stared the woman down. “I damn well know you and your husband get regular rations from the Army.”

            “It’s not enough,” Jenny Bell retorted, wilting a little.

            “No, it isn’t. But Mrs Vintner doesn’t get any other food and her pension can only go so far.”

            There was still human decency in the congregation. Jenny Bell fell silent and stepped back into the crowd.

            Sooner or later, even human decency would fail in the face of survival instinct. Sparrow didn’t need a Murphy woman’s Sight to know that was coming. She and the other clergy were trying to patch holes in the sandbags that held back the tide of misery with nothing more than prayers and hands. One day, the wall would fail and the land flood.

            There was one fight and true to her word, Sparrow set aside her pen and paper, stood up and prepared to march on the offending parties. Thankfully, a burly Polish man with the tattoos of a Pierogi Posse member threw them both out on their asses. She nodded gratefully to him and resumed her seat.

            The food, tightly rationed as it was, ran out before half the crowd was satisfied. Everyone else slunk away in disappointment and a sullen anger that might find outlet somewhere else. She just hoped it wasn’t in a food riot. Innocent people would die at the hands of the Army.

            The Polish man lingered as she was packing up the crates. “Can I help you?” Sparrow asked politely. This could be clan business.

            “The Organizacja would like to speak to the clans,” he said in careful English. The Resource Wars had made the organised European criminals flush with foot soldiers, if not the wealth to make use of them – and many knew how to apply violence in appropriate situations. Of the lesser families, the Poles were the most active.

            “Which one?” Carrying polite messages was within the scope of her duties and vows.

            “All of them. Finlay. Killian. Savoldi. Murphy.” The man gestured in frustration. “We want to join your alliance.”

            Sparrow glanced around. “Winter?”

            _“Tak,”_ he confirmed. _Yes._

“I’ll carry the message. More than that, I can’t promise.” She assumed that the Organizacja was what the Pierogi Posse called themselves.

            “You’re Killian.”

            “I don’t know what things are like in the Polish clans, but in the Irish and Italian ones, the clergy stay out of everything but organising truces and carrying messages,” Sparrow explained gently. “In return, we aren’t a legitimate target. Like civilians, family homes, schools, churches…”

            The Pole grunted. “Winter won’t honour that.”

            “I know,” Sparrow sighed. “Lord, I know.”

            “Soon, kapłanka, you won’t be able to stop crowds with glares and lectures.” He spoke from experience.

            “I know.” Sparrow regarded him sadly. “But I will try to remind the parish that we’re supposed to be decent human beings to each other for as long as I can. Thank you for removing those two brawlers.”

            He echoed her earlier sigh. “Chmiel and Filipek should have known better. This is a church, not a bar.”

            Sparrow’s mouth quirked to the side. “You saved me from throwing them out.”

            His smile was more of a grimace. “You Irish… In better times, you made good enemies.”

            “If you’re playing fair with the clans, you’ll find we make better friends.”

            “We will find out.” He paused. “Be careful walking home. There’s danger in the air.”

            “Thank you for the warning… I didn’t get your name.”

            He smiled. “If the clans ally, you will learn it. Until then, good night.”

            With that cryptic remark, he left the room and Sparrow returned to cleaning up. If the Polish were wanting to join the alliance, things had to be worse than she realised with Eddie Winter.

            Once she stepped outside the church, her senses heightened and she became aware of every shadow, every flicker of light in Cambridge. Vagrants were disappearing and Sparrow didn’t need a Murphy woman’s Sight to guess the Institute had a hand in it.

            _Is it worth it, Mother? This atmosphere of fear and paranoia?_ Sparrow never dared muse aloud. She remembered Maureen O’Malley’s fate.

            She was at her car when something screeched in the distance. Instinctively, Sparrow curled into a ball just before something big and dark hit the side of her vehicle, driving her into unconsciousness.

…

The first and the last of the Maxsons studied each other, bright blue eyes crossing like blades before a battle. Roger was younger than his portrait in the Hall of Elders. But there was a burning charisma about the Captain that would give birth to a legendary order. If Arthur could keep him alive.

            Roger Maxson was what Arthur might have been as Elder, if future-Gealbhan had survived.

            Veronica, his wife, was a sturdy woman with ash-brown hair and a calm serenity about herself. Roger Jr. was a lanky twelve-year-old who was eager to meet his ‘crime clan cousin’.

            Finally, Roger held out his hand and Arthur took it. They shook gingerly. It was a bit awkward.

            “I don’t trust Elisabeth Killian as far as I could throw her,” Roger finally grated.

            Arthur’s mouth quirked. “Neither do I. My allegiance is to her daughter – and Frances, to a lesser extent.”

            “There’s some indication, if my sources are anything to go by, that Frances is grooming Arthur to take over the Killians when he dies because – by the code – Sparrow can’t because she’s training to become a priest,” Nigel reported smoothly.

            “That so?” Roger asked, arching an eyebrow.

            “I can neither confirm nor deny that,” Arthur answered quietly. “But I am here as an ally.”

            “In a perfect world, we wouldn’t need killers,” Roger said sourly. “But well, this isn’t a perfect world.”

            _No it isn’t,_ Arthur agreed silently.

            “Roger Maxson, he’s family,” Veronica said firmly. “He’s also Irish. You know how they are with their clans.”

            “That’s the only reason I’m meeting with him,” Roger told his wife. “I’ve seen Killian’s killers at work. Tell me-“ He turned back to Arthur. “-Have you ever killed a civilian?”

            “Yes,” Arthur admitted with a sigh. “In a… personal feud. It led to me coming to Frances’ attention.”

            One way to describe his time travel.

            Roger’s mouth tightened. “What kind of ‘personal feud’?”

            “I lost someone I loved. I wiped out the killer, his allies and anyone who tried to stop me.” Arthur met Roger’s eyes squarely. “I’m not proud of what I did. But I won’t waste tears over it when I can’t change the past, only the future.”

            “That’s what I always say,” Veronica observed with a sigh. “Roger, can you question him over dinner? The Salisbury Steak will be cold otherwise and you know how much that costs.”

            Roger’s gaze softened when he looked at his wife. “Of course.”

            “I can see what the Killian connections can spare,” Arthur offered. “They trade in more than moonshine.”

            Roger’s eyes closed. “I’d love to tell you to stick those connections where the sun doesn’t shine but – things are lean in the west. What are they like in the east?”

            “Lean,” Arthur confirmed. “And it will get worse.”

            “Damn Chinese,” Nigel muttered.

            Arthur and Roger exchanged a glance. They knew it wasn’t just the Chinese’s fault.

            Veronica led Arthur through the tiny sitting room into an equally tiny dining room and kitchen. The space was dominated by three very imposing men and a boy who promised to share the Maxsons’ large frame.

            “I’ve been assigned to Mariposa,” Roger admitted once they’d seated themselves at the table.

            “May I offer a word of advice?” Arthur suggested.

            “…I’ll listen.”

            “Seed caches between there and Lost Hills. Weapons, food, medicines, purified water.”

            Roger’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”

            “Because in the event of a nuclear fallout, Lost Hills will make a better base than Mariposa.” He couldn’t alter things too much or Roger would never found the Brotherhood of Steel.

            “…That’s a good point.” Roger didn’t look happy to be agreeing with Arthur.

            Arthur himself was quickly losing the awe he held for his ancestor. He understood what Nigel meant by ‘intense’ – when those blue eyes fixed on him, he wanted to blurt out the whole truth.

            “Two, watch out for a lean, dark-haired man.” Arthur grimaced and cut into his Salisbury Steak. “He’s the last one standing of my personal feud – an enforcer – and he’s just nasty enough to ignore the clan code and go for an uninvolved male relative like you or Nigel, maybe even Junior.”

            Roger’s mouth thinned. “Lovely world you’re from, Arthur.”

            Arthur nodded. “I know. And it will only get worse. All we can do is prepare for the future and hope for the best.”


	7. Necessary Atrocities

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: Thanks for reading and reviewing. Trigger warning for death, violence, torture, medical experimentation and fantastic racism. As I’ve said before – massively AU, so canon characters can be very different.

 

_Hangman’s Alley, 2287_

“You did _what_?”

            Preston Garvey nearly yelped his question after Deacon casually informed him what happened at the Castle.

            “I just got the Castle cleared by the exiled Brotherhood soldiers,” Deacon repeated with far too much cheer. “The ones who cleaned up Quincy.”

            The Minuteman took a deep breath and released it explosively before asking, “Why?”

            “Because we’ve got a group of genocidal shitheads taking over the Airport,” the spy answered, losing his chirpy demeanour. “We’re going to get crushed between the Institute and the Brotherhood of Steel if we don’t find a creative solution.”

            “And you’re all about the creative solutions, aren’t you, Deacon?”

            Years of seeing Deacon remove his mirrored shades had never inured Preston to the sight of those unnatural yellow eyes in a human face. “I have no choice. The Railroad’s dead but for me and Glory. The Minutemen are you, Sturges and Curie. We need M7-97 and his allies.”

            “You mean Danse.” Deacon’s fellow synth, the self-described ‘poster child of a liberated ass-kicking synth’ Glory, walked into the circle of light cast by a flickering streetlight just outside Hangman’s Alley. Once a raider haunt, it was now transformed into a hidey-hole for the last remnants of the Commonwealth Resistance.

            “Sorry.” Deacon sounded rightfully chided. Preston didn’t get all of the etiquette involved in the free synth community – but he knew referring to an escaped synth by their designation if they’d taken a name was considered pretty damned rude. “It’s just like… shit. The Rivet City branch got _something_ right before Zimmerman wiped them out.”

            Preston cleared his throat. “The Cait Adamh tell me they’re looking for the Killians because of some marriage between them and a Brotherhood ruling clan.”

            Deacon’s eyes narrowed. “Holy _shit._ ”

            Glory crossed her arms. “There’s only Cait Killian left and she’d gut you with her bare hands for mentioning the clan in her presence.”

            Deacon was already shaking his head. “No. Cait comes from the Quincy lineage that moved up to Fiddlers Green. There’s another lineage, descended from Seanascal Killian, that was based up north in Concord.”

            Preston’s eyebrows rose. “Everyone knows that the Killians are descended from Tine.”

            “Yeah, but he only became Clan-Chief after Seanascal died and Cruach, the Tanist of the Killians, was lost in the Great War,” Deacon corrected.

            The Minuteman, grandson of a clanswoman himself, translated the names – Fire, Seneschal and Steel. The old clans had a name for the Sasanach, those who were outside of the clan, and the clan-name for use within. Seanascal reportedly laid the groundwork for the clanholds and freeholds while Tine saw them implemented just after the Great War. But this was the first he’d ever heard of a Cruach.

            “Cruach’s the Brotherhood connection,” he said slowly.

            “And you think he’s an idiot,” Glory told Deacon dryly.

            “How do you know this, Deacon?” Preston asked.

            It was Glory who answered. “The Killian family history is, in a way, synth family history. Every Gen-3 synth can trace their ancestry to samples taken and preserved cryogenically during the years before the Great War.”

            “Yeah. The Institute made a big deal about it during our indoctrination as baby synths,” Deacon said grimly. “But the point is we got a link in the chain of succession that Lyon’s Pride is searching for. We can use that for bargaining.”

            “The Minutemen owe them twice over,” Preston replied calmly. “I’m going to the Castle tomorrow and telling them what we know.”

            “Are you crazy?” Deacon stepped right up into Preston’s face. “We have a chance to manipulate the situation to our benefit and you want to throw it away through some misguided sense of… what?”

            “Onóir agus oibleagáid,” Preston finished. “You might be descended from the clans, Deacon, but you don’t understand. We owe them a double-debt – and if Danse is a synth, as you’ve implied, that makes him a Killian too. The Cait Adamh have recognised them as a clan bound by purpose. That means we treat with them fairly or not at all.”

            “You’ll have to be careful,” Glory said softly. “If the Brotherhood wipe them out before we can get the Castle artillery working…”

            Preston took a deep breath. He was the General of the Minutemen. “Screw with the Airport Brotherhood. If you can get them to focus on the Institute in Cambridge for a while…”

            “That will buy Lyon’s Pride some time,” Glory, who was no mean tactician herself, finished. “Got it. I’ll go with you if Deacon can borrow Sturges.”

            “Done, if that’s what he wants.”

            “It will be. Sturges owes the Institute some payback. We all do.”

            Preston nodded. “Good. Get some rest. Tomorrow’s gonna be an interesting day.”

…

_Commonwealth Institute of Technology, 2074_

“Well, well. Little Miss Saint got hit by a car.”

            Elisabeth Killian turned around to face the killer, pressing a particular button that made him cry out in pain. “You are still alive because you’re useful, Finlay. That status can be changed at any time with one press of a button.”

            Nate Finlay’s yellow eyes narrowed. The Institute scientists, funded by Enclave interests, had outdone themselves with the cybernetics implanted in one of the finest black ops soldiers to serve America’s interests. “You have to die someday.”

            “And someone else will hold the leash. Perhaps even my daughter.” Elisabeth turned back to the bloodied wreck that was Sparrow. That she would live was inevitable; the Enclave director of Massachusetts would accept no other outcome. Unfortunately, there was no way to modify her behaviour or conscience. But Elisabeth had long since learned to live with what couldn’t be changed, even by her resources.

            “She’s too gentle.” Nate’s tone was mildly defiant.

            “Maxson isn’t.”

            Of all the alliances that could have been made, Frances circumvented her authority and made one between their daughter and the temporally displaced soldier. Elisabeth had been angry at first but – a year later – she realised her husband was correct. Maxson was everything that she thought Nate had been.

            The Institute had been all over the place where Arthur fell into the river and declared that the energy readings were something akin to one of their projects, the molecular transmitter. They’d also found something else that the Director hadn’t officially told her about but that she knew anyway.

            “Elisabeth?”

            “I was just thinking about you,” she observed with a nod to the Director, Dr Stanislaus Braun. “Leave us, Finlay.”

            He obeyed with a scowl.

            “I’m flattered but your husband is a dangerous man,” Braun said with a wry smile.

            “Forgive me if I don’t flirt with you today.” Elisabeth folded her arms and regarded Braun calmly. “She can be saved?”

            “God, yes. In fact, scientifically speaking, your daughter’s DNA is a marvel.” Most people saved that sort of tone for God or something else they held in reverence. For Braun, science was the only true God, a fact she could appreciate. “I’ve taken the liberty of acquiring more samples than we need to regenerate things. She… well… She’s got the genetic component that allows cybernetics to bond to organic material without needing a regime of medications.”

            “You can keep those samples as payment,” Elisabeth promised coolly.

            “Ah, that’s generous.” Braun rubbed his hands with glee. “We’ll be able to regenerate most of her body parts using those techniques we honed on Finlay. Unfortunately, we can’t yet create eyes from nothing, so she’s going to need cybernetic replacements.”

            “Can you make them look natural?” Elisabeth understood her daughter would be distressed if she had visibly inhuman features. The girl drove her almost to drink at times but she didn’t want to cause her undue grief, not when she’d been more helpful in Cambridge than people realised.

            “Yes,” Braun said with a sigh. “Well, the eye will look like a glass eye. But your daughter can’t complain when she’ll have a literal V.A.T.S programme in her head.”

            “Insert Catholic whining about unnatural technology here,” Elisabeth observed dryly. “Still, despite her vocation, Sparrow’s a sensible girl.”

            Braun chuckled. He was an atheist. “She’s in good hands. Find who’s responsible, please. Cambridge has become more abandoned at night and this has made things… difficult for our work.”

            “Certainly.” Elisabeth smiled at the Director grimly. “That car was driven deliberately into my daughter. And I have no intention of letting such an insult go unanswered.”

            “Ah, the Irish temper.” Braun nodded cordially. “ _Do_ bring them in if possible. We have a radiation experiment we need to run soon – and such as this individual would make a useful subject.”

            “Of course, old friend.” Elisabeth nodded to him. She had a fair idea of who was responsible. “I shall see you tomorrow.”

…

Nigel Maxson knew that he wasn’t as… soldierly… as Roger. In fact, he only served in the military because every Maxson did. In time, he’d learned the tricks of the bureaucracy and saved himself from the hellhole that was Alaska, making alliances and connections that would serve their family well when the bombs eventually fell. No Maxson would die in the blood and snow as their father Roger had.

            “He’s _dead_ , Arthur,” the bureaucrat stated calmly.

            The carcass hanging by its arms by a short length of chain attached to a ceiling hook had once been a very, very stupid petty foot soldier who answered to a would-be gangster king of Boston. Under the skilled hands of his adopted son and Arthur’s fiancée’s father, the man had sung like a bird. Pity that the information couldn’t exactly be handed to Nick Valentine and the BADTFL.

            “Ye’re a cool one, Nigel,” Frances noted as he wiped his hands with a towel, leaving scarlet streaks. He sounded almost approving.

            “I won’t claim to have a temper like an Irishman but I dislike the idea of a Maxson’s future bride being run down in the street like a stray dog,” Nigel pointed out before looking at Arthur, who was ready to take another swing at the corpse. “Enough! He’s dead.”

            If Arthur, the ruthless killer who made Frances’ boys look like amateurs, had a weak spot it was Sparrow Killian. Anyone fool enough to hurt the novice priest found themselves… well, dead meat literally. If what Frances and Nigel’s own Institute contact implied was true, Arthur had travelled from the future – with the marvels C.I.T. created, he wasn’t going to dismiss time travel as a theoretical possibility.

            “I am not happy she’s in the hands of the Institute,” Arthur finally snarled. “If you know what they’ll do-“

            “They’re the only ones who can save the colleen,” Frances said tiredly. “Sometimes ye must bargain with the Devil to save a life.”

            Nigel patted his adopted son’s thick shoulder sympathetically. “My own Institute contact’s making sure they don’t do more than the necessary monkeying around to save her. A cybernetic eye, some regenerated body parts. No more, no less.”

            “It wasn’t supposed to happen,” Arthur said brokenly. “I was supposed to stop it.”

            “Perhaps time is like a river with boulders in it,” Nigel suggested gently. “No matter how hard you try, you can’t shift the rocks, only flow around them.”

            Arthur regarded him with wild blue eyes. “Proctor Quinlan would have liked you.”

            Nigel privately wondered how he knew the surname of his Institute contact. Or maybe it was a descendant. Arthur was still cagy about how the Maxsons would shape the future – well, how Roger would – but he’d implied more than once what happened at Mariposa would leave a legacy that lasted decades, if not centuries.

            “Aye, well, we know who gave the order,” Frances said grimly. “I’ll get Liz’s bloodhounds to track the bastard.”

            Nigel nodded. “I’ll see if I can send some military aid Valentine’s way.”

            “Aye. He’s the colleen’s godfather. If we don’t include him on this…”

            It was interesting how Frances rarely referred to Sparrow by name. Arthur, unfortunately, wouldn’t reveal clan secrets even for his blood family. Killian was grooming him to take over – that was obvious even to Roger – but more than that, Nigel knew nothing.

            “I’ll leave you to the clean-up then,” Nigel told the pair calmly.

            “Thank ye. Liz will want to know what happened.” Frances nodded to him.

            Nigel turned away as the clansman pulled out a cleaver. The trick of being a military bureaucrat was to turn a blind eye to the necessary atrocities for the good of the United States.


End file.
